Office 


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r        u;. 


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AT 

Las  ANGELES 

LIBRAUX 


THE  CONNOISSEUR'S  LIBRARY 

GENERAL  EDITOR:  CYRIL  DAVENPORT 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 


STATUK  KNOWN  AS  THK  SHKIK  KI.  BKI.Kl).    ANC  IKNT  KCVl'TIAN 

GUEtl    MUSEUM,   CAIRO 


WOOD 
SCU  LPTURE 


BY 


ALFRED    MASKED L,    F.S.A. 


NEW  YORK  :   G.   P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
LONDON:    METHUEN  AND  CO.  LTD. 


-At  O  -I  O  ^ 


First  published  in  igii 


Library 


o 


\  3*7 


vv 


PREFACE 

HARDLY  any  other  division  of  the  arts  covers 
so  wide  a  field  as  that  which  is  open  before 
us  in  the  study  of  the  use  of  wood  in  its 
I     decorative  applications  of  every  kind.     The  history  of 
•    all  the  arts  in  all  countries  from  the  earliest  Egyptian 
times  ;   the  schools  of  painting,  of  engraving,  and  of 
"^^   sculpture  in  other  materials ;    the  goldsmiths',  metal- 
workers', and  even  the  potters'  crafts ;  church  lore  and 
liturgiology  ;  the  varieties  of  furniture  of  every  descrip- 
tion, ecclesiastical  and  domestic  ;  the  science  and  art  of 
^  coins  and  medals  ;  symbolism,  natural  history,  botany, 
^  even  heraldry — these  things  and  more,  perhaps,  con- 
"  front  us  from  time  to   time,   and    present    points   of 
contact  which  cannot  be   ignored.     In  endeavouring, 
therefore,  to   treat  so  comprehensive  a  subject,   in   a 
single  volume,    I    cannot   but    be   aware    that    I    lay 
myself  open  to  the  criticism  of  specialists  in  all  the 
many  divisions  with  which  I  may  have  the  hardihood 
to  connect  it,  and   I  can  scarcely  expect  to  avoid  the 
numerous  pitfalls. 

After  about  the  twelfth  century  the  quantity  of 
available  material  is  so  great  that  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  only  plan  would  be  to  restrict  the  general  scope  in 
the  main  to  figure  sculpture  and  to  certain  decorative 
work  in  relief,  and  to  consider  what  examples  could  be 
selected  which  would  best  illustrate  the  evolution  of  the 
art  and  the  influences  exerted  by  one  country  on 
another.  It  may  be  asked  why  such  and  such  a  figure 
or  other  work  has  been  included,  or  why  such  another 
one  has  been  passed  over.     The  only  answer  is  that  a 

V 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

choice  had  to  be  made.  It  was  necessary,  also,  to  draw 
a  line  somewhere,  and  I  have  done  this — generally 
speaking — at  the  end  of  the  Gothic  period.  Whole 
geographical  divisions — Russia,  China,  Japan,  and  the 
East  have,  perforce  also,  been  left  untouched. 

The  history  of  domestic  furniture  already  possesses 
an  extensive  literature,  and  our  present  interest  in  it  is 
limited  to  the  subjects  of  the  decoration.  In  the  case  of 
such  divisions  as  chancel  screens,  choir  stalls,  miseri- 
cords, bench-ends,  and  the  like,  it  has  not  seemed  to  me 
necessary  to  treat  them  in  detail.  The  student  who 
desires  complete  information  and  full  lists  will  consult 
the  special  publications  to  which  references  will  be 
found  in  the  Bibliography.  There  are,  in  addition, 
numerous  articles  in  the  transactions  of  local  archaeo- 
logical societies. 

For  a  work  of  so  comprehensive  a  character  I  must 
admit  my  many  disabilities  and  restrictions.  I  cannot 
pretend  to  universal  knowledge  of  existing  examples  of 
wood  sculpture,  in  all  countries  and  of  all  ages,  which 
may  have  claims  for  notice.  In  my  selections  I  have 
given  the  preference,  as  a  rule,  to  those  which  have 
come  under  my  own  notice  in  our  home  museums 
and  in  many  museums  and  collections  on  the  Con- 
tinent. I  have  availed  myself  largely  of  numerous 
notes  made  at  various  times  during  several  years,  as 
well  as  of  other  assistance  whenever  I  have  found 
anything  already  collected  which  appeared  to  me  to  be 
useful.  I  am  free,  indeed,  to  admit  that  erudition,  or 
even  originality,  are  the  least  of  the  qualities — even  if 
I  possessed  them — for  which  I  should  desire  credit. 
My  aim  is  to  be  readable,  and  to  set  forth  the  subject 
in  the  simplest  and  most  intelligible  manner.  This 
book  is  not  addressed  to  those  already  fully  acquainted 
with  the  matter,  but  to  the  inquiring  English  reader 
to  whom  some  of  it,  at  least,  may  be  entirely  new. 
The  Bibliography,  in  fact,  shows  how  few  books  exist, 
vi 


PREFACE 

in  English,  in  which  any  information  at  all — and  still 
less,  illustrations — are  to  be  found  on  many  details 
which  are  here  discussed. 

My  indebtedness  is  great  to  such  writers  as  Bode, 
in  the  case  of  German  art,  Fabriczy,  Fogolari,  and 
D'Achiardi  for  Italy,  Molinier  for  France,  Destrde 
for  the  Netherlands,  and  Habich  for  the  German 
medallion  carvers.  Were  it  not  for  limitations  of  space, 
I  should  no  doubt  have  availed  myself  still  more 
largely  of  the  learning  and  research  of  these  writers. 

A  word  must  be  said  in  excuse  of  imperfections  in 
the  quality  of  some  of  the  illustrations  which  may  not 
be  thought,  in  every  case,  entirely  satisfactory.  The 
photographing  of  the  objects  themselves,  in  museums, 
has  often  been  attended  with  considerable  difficulty, 
from  their  position  in  obscure  corners,  and  from  the 
practice  of  placing  under  glass.  Others  have  had  to  be 
copied  from  poor  photographs  in  books,  or  obtained 
from  abroad,  and,  in  the  case  of  some  important  pieces, 
it  has  not  been  found  possible  to  procure  any  photo- 
graphs at  all.  In  some  instances,  also,  there  has  been 
the  unsurmountable  difficulty  of  adequately  rendering 
the  colouring  of  the  sculpture. 

But  in  the  matter  of  the  illustrations,  generally,  my 
warmest  thanks  are  due  to  several  friends  for  their  very 
kind  and  disinterested  assistance.  Amongst  them  I 
must  especially  mention  Mr.  George  C.  Druce,  Mr. 
Francis  Bond,  Mr.  F.  L.  S.  Houghton,  M.A.,  Dom 
Bede  Camm,  the  Rev.  J.  W.  Banke,  Mr.  E.  W.  Smith, 
Mr.  A.  G.  Thompson,  Mrs.  George  Wilson,  Mr. 
Frederick  Evans,  Mr.  F.  H.  Crossley,  Mr.  Aymer 
Vallance,  and  Mr.  Herbert  Read,  of  the  Woodcarving 
Works,  Exeter,  who  has  so  ably  restored  many  of 
the  Devonshire  chancel  screens.  To  all  these  I  am 
indebted  for  valuable  aid  by  the  loan  of  collections  of 
photographs  of  English  carved  work,  such  as  screens, 
misericords,  and  bench-ends,  and,  where  I  have  been 

vii 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

able  to  avail  myself  of  it,  by  leave  to  reproduce  from 
them.  In  addition,  my  publishers  desire  recognition  of 
permission  from  the  respective  publishers  or  owners  to 
make  use  of  their  copyright  photographs  for  plates : — 
Messrs.  Alinari,  Florence;  Amslerand  Ruthardt,  Berlin; 
F.  Bromhead,  Clifton,  Bristol ;  Carl  Ebner,  Stuttgart ; 
M.  Frankenstein,  Vienna ;  A.  Giraudon,  Paris ;  Neue 
Photographische  Gesellschaft,  Steglitz-Berlin  ;  Neur- 
dein  Freres,  Paris ;  G.  Schwartz,  Berlin  ;  Karl  Teufel, 
Munich  ;  W.  Zink,  Gotha. 

A.  M. 

April  igii. 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Preface, v 

List  of  the  Plates, xi 

Chapter  I.  Introductory  —  Prehistoric    Art  — 

Wood  Sculpture  in  Ancient  Egypt,     .         .  i 

Chapter  II.  Wood  Sculpture  in  the  early  Middle 

Ages  and  Later,  .         .         .         .         .         .         19 

Chapter  III.  The  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,  and 
Fifteenth  Centuries — Guilds  and  Corpora- 
tions,   40 

Chapter  IV.  Retables  in  Flanders  and  Ger- 
many, .         .         .         .         .         .         .        61 

Chapter  V.  Wood  Sculpture  in  Germany  in  the 

Fifteenth  and  Early  Sixteenth  Centuries,    .         75 

Chapter  VI.  The  Franconian,  Bavarian,  and 
other  German  Artists  and  Workshops  of 
the  End  of  the  Gothic  Period,      ...         94 

Chapter  VII.  Veit  Stoss — Riemenschneider — 

Pacher — Multscher — Briiggemann,      .         .         99 

Chapter  VIII.  Sculpture  in  Boxwood — Fran- 
cesco da  Sant'  Agata — Conrad  Meit — Hans 
Wydyz, 140 

Chapter  IX.  German  Medallions  iri  Wood,  161 

Chapter  X.  Microscopic   or   Miniature  Wood 

Sculpture, .183 

ix 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

PAGE 

Chapter  XL  Wood  Sculpture  in  Spain — Some 

Spanish  Retables  and  their  Makers,    .         .       192 

Chapter  XI L  Crucifixes  and  Madonna  Figures,      214 

Chapter  XI I L  On  some  Examples  of  Wood 
Sculpture  of  the  Trecento  and  Quattrocento 
in  Italy, 239 

Chapter  XIV.    On    the    Colouring    of  Wood 

Sculpture,    .......       261 

Chapter  XV.  Wood  Sculpture  in  England  in 
the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,  and  Fifteenth 
Centuries — Coffers,  Chests,  and  Panellings 
— Sepulchral  Effigies  and  Small  Figure 
Work, 279 

Chapter  XVI.  Choirs  and  Choir  Stalls,  .       313 

Chapter  XVII.  Symbolism  in  Church  Wood- 
work— Misericords — Bench-Ends,         .  336 

Chapter  XVI  1 1.  Chancel  Screens  and  other 
Carved  Woodwork  in  Parish  Churches  in 
the  West  of  England,  ....       373 

Conclusion, 402 

Index, 417 


LIST    OF    PLATES 

Statue.     The  Sheik  el  Beled.  Frontispiece 

TO  FACE  PAGE 

I.  Church  Doorway.    Scandinavian.    Twelfth 

century,      .......       20 

n.  Panels  with  angels.    Savoyard.    Sixteenth 

century, .       48 

iiL   I.  Retable  at  Dijon.    2.  Carved  Letters  : 

M.  and  F.  of  Margaret  of  Austria,     .         .       50 

IV.  Altarpiece  in  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

Flemish.     Fifteenth  century,     ...       70 

V.  Retable  of  Claude  de  Villa.     Flemish. 

Fifteenth  century,      .....       72 
VI.  Retable       in      Marienkirche,        Liibeck. 

Flemish.     Early  sixteenth  century,    .         .       88 
VII.  Altarpiece  at  Cracow.    German.     By  Veit 

Stoss.     Fifteenth  century,  .         .         .102 

VIII.  Hanging  Rosary  Wreath.     By  Veit  Stoss. 

Sixteenth  century,      .         .         .         .         .104 
IX.  Group.     St.  Anne  and  St.  Joachim.     Vic- 
toria    and     Albert     Museum.       Suabian 
School.     Early  sixteenth  century,     .  •      iH 

X.  Retable    at    Rothenburg.      By    Riemen- 

schneider.     Fifteenth  century,  .         .116 

XI.  Shrine   by  Riemenschneider.      Reliefs  by 

Veit  Stoss II 8 

xi 


WOOD   SCULPTURE 

TO  FACE  PAGE 

XII.  Penitent   Magdalen.       i.   By  Riemen- 

schneider.     2.  By  Donatello,  .120 

XIII.  I.  Portrait   Busts.      2.  Busts:  Adam 

and  Eve,         .         .  .122 

XIV.  Group  :  '  Fleeting  Life.'     Ambras  Collec- 

tion, Vienna,  .         .         .         .         .123 

XV.  I.  St.    Sebastian.      2.    Eve.      Museum 

of  Louvre,               .         .                  .         .124 
XVI.  Group.     The  Virgin,  vSt.  John,  and  Mary 
Magdalen.      Flemish.      Sixteenth    cen- 
tury,        125 

xvti.  Panels,     with     figures    of    Evangelists. 

Bavarian.     Fifteenth  century,         .         .126 
xviii.  Figures.       SS.   Barbara  and    Margaret. 
By    Hans    Multscher.      Fifteenth    cen- 
tury,        128 

xix.  I.  The  Madonna  of  Niirnberg.      2.  Ma- 
donna.    Rhenish.     Fifteenth  century,  .     130 
XX.  The  Madonna  of  Nurnberg.     Half-length,     132 
XXI.  Altarpiece.       Suabian.     Sixteenth  cen- 
tury,        134 

XXII.  Altarpiece.      Suabian.       Fifteenth   cen- 
tury,        136 

XXIII.  Group.        SS.    Gereon     and     Catherine. 

Augsburg.     Sixteenth  century,       .         .138 

XXIV.  Figure.     St.  Elizabeth.    Elizabethkirche, 

Marburg,        .         .         .         .         .  139 

XXV.  Statuette.    Boxwood.     Hercules.    Wal- 
lace Collection,        .....     144 
XXVI.  Statuettes.    Boxwood.    Adam  and  Eve. 

Gotha  Museum, 154 

xxvii.  I.  Group.      St.  Christopher.     2.  Statu- 
ette.    Boxwood.     Jamnitzer,        .         .158 
xii 


LIST   OF   PLATES 


TO  FACE  PAGE 

German.     Six- 


or 


XXVIII.  Medallions.  Boxwood 

teenth  century      .... 

XXIX.  Miniature   Altarpiece.     Flemish 

German.     Sixteenth  century, 
XXX.  Microscopic  Wood  Sculpture.    Flem- 
ish or  German.     Sixteenth  century, 
XXXI.  Retable  of  Seville  Cathedral, 
XXXII.  Polychromed  Figures,     i,  2.  Spanish. 
Seventeenth       century.        3.    French. 
Fourteenth  century,      .... 

xxxiii.   I.  Bust.     '  Mater   dolorosa.'     Spanish. 
2.  Predella.     Spanish.     Seventeenth 
century,         ...... 

XXXIV.  Crucifix  Figures.     French.     Twelfth 
century,         ...... 

XXXV.  Crucifix.     By  Brunelleschi, 
XXXVI.  Madonnas.     Romanesque,     . 
XXXVII.  Madonna.   French.   Fourteenth  century, 
XXXVIII.   I.  Madonna.       French.        Fourteenth 
century.     2.   'Anna  selbdritt'  group,    . 
XXXIX.   I.  Angel    Gabriel    of    an    Annun- 
ciation Group.      Italian.       Fifteenth 
century.    2.  Madonna.   Italian.   Four- 
teenth century,      .... 

XL.  Madonna.     By  Jacopo  della  Quercia, 
XLi.  Annunciation  Figures.    Pisan  school 

Fourteenth  century, 
XLii.  Annunciation  Figures, 

Fourteenth  century, 
XLiii.  Annunciation  Figures. 

Fourteenth  century, 
XLiv.  I.     Angel      Gabriel. 
Michael.  Italian 


Pisan  school 


Pisan  school 


2.     Angel 
Fourteenth  century, 
xiii 


180 

186 

188 
208 


211 


212 

216 
222 
226 

232 

234 


236 
238 

246 

250 

252 

254 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

TO  FACE  PAGE 

XLV.  Annunciation      Figures.        Florentine 

school.     Fifteenth  century,  .         .         .     256 
XLVi.  Angels.     English.     Fifteenth  century,  .     290 
XLVii.  Chests,     i.  English  or  Flemish.     Four- 
teenth century.    2.  French.     Fifteenth 
century.     3.  French  ?     Fifteenth  cen- 
tury,      296 

XLViii.  Sepulchral     Effigies.         i.     Italian. 

2,  3.  English, 304 

XLix.  Figures    of    Apostles,      i.     English. 
Fourteenth   century.      2.  By  Riemen- 
schneider,     ......     308 

L.  Details    of    Choir    Work.       Amiens 

Cathedral.     Sixteenth  century,     .         .     328 
Li.  Details    of    Choir     Work.         Auch 

Cathedral.     Sixteenth  century,     .         .     334 
Lii.  Extracts     from     Sketch  -  Book     of 

WiLARS  DE  HONECOURT,        .  .  .      350 

Liii.  Misericords.     English  and  French,      .     368 
Liv.  Panels    on    the    Backs   of    Benches    in 

Church  of  North  Cray,  Kent,        .         .     372 
Lv.  Statue.        St.     Catherine.         English. 

Fourteenth  century,      ....     373 
Lvi.  Parts  of  Chancel  Screens,         .         .     388 
Lvii.  Details  of  Cornices  of   Devonshire 

Chancel  Screens,      ....     390 
lviii.  Details      of      Cornices     of      West 

Country  Chancel  Screens,     .         .     396 
Lix.  Details  of  Cornices  of  Devonshire 

Chancel  Screens,     .        .         .        .401 


XIV 


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Commission  [Parliamentary]  :  Report  on  the  Cause  of 

Decay  in  IVood-carving.     1864. 
Conway  (W.  M.)  :  Early  Tuscan  Art.     1902. 
Cornelius  (C.)  :  facopo  delta  Querela.     1896. 
CouRAjOD  (L.).     Catal.  raisonnd  mus.  de  sculpt,  com- 
part dit  Trocadero.     1892. 
Cox    (J.    C.)    and    Harvey    (A.):     English    Church 

Furjiiture.     1907. 
Cox  (J.  C.)  and  Hope  (St.  J.) :  The  Chronicles.  .  .  . 

All  SS.  Derby.     1881. 
Crallan  (F.   a.)  :   Details  of  Gothic   Woodcarving. 

(Drawings:  short  text).     1897. 
Crouch  (J.):  Puritanism  and  Art.     1910. 
Crowe  (J.  A.)  and  Cavalcaselle  (G.  B.)  :   A  New 

History  of  Painting  in  Italy.     1 908. 
Crull  (J.) :  Antiquities  of  St.  Peter's :  or  the  Abbey 

Church  of  IVestminster.     1741. 
CzERNY  (A.) :  Kunst  und  Kunstwerke  in  St.  Florian. 

1886. 

D'AcHiARDi  (P.) :  Alcune  opere  di  sctUtura  in  legno 

dei  secoli  xiv  e  xv.  (In  L'Arte,  vii.  1904.) 
Darcel(A.):  The  Basilewsky  Collection.  1874. 
Daressy  (M.  G.,  and  others) :  Catal  gdn.  du  musde  du 

Caire.     1 901 -19 10. 
Dart  (J.)  :  Hist,  and  Antiqs.  of  Cathedral  Church  of 

Canterbury.     1726. 
Daun  (B.)  :   l^eit  Stoss  und  seine  Schule.     1903. 
,,      Adam  Krafft.     1903. 
,,         ,,      P.  Fischer  und  A.  Krafft.     1903. 

xviii 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Davillier  (Baron)  :  Les  arts  ddcoratifs  en  Espagne. 

1879. 
Dearmer  (P.)  :  Fifty  Pictttres  of  Gothic  Altars.   1910. 
Dehio    (G.)  :    HandbucJi   der    deiitschen    Kiinstdenk- 

mdler.     1905. 
Dehio  (G.)  and  Bezold  (G.  v.)  :  Die  Denkmdler  der 

deiitschen  Bildhauerknnst.     1905. 
Delaborde  C^^  :  Les  dues  de  Bonrgogne  au  xv'""*  siecle, 

1849-51. 
Deshaines  (Mgr.)  :  Lart  dans  les  Flandres. 

,,  ,,         Lart  chrdtien  en  Flandres. 

Destre^s   (J.) :     Tapis serie  et  sculpture  Bruxellois. 

1906. 
,,  ,,       Etude  sur  la  sculpture  Brabanqonne 

au  nioyen  dge.     (See  Annates  de 
la  Soc.  dArcJidologie  de  Bruxelles. 

1895.) 
Detzel  (H.)  :  Christliche  Ikonographie.     1894. 

, ,  , ,   Etude  sur  la  Sculpture  brabanconne.  1 894. 

Deville  (A.)  :    Coniptes  de  ddpenses  .  .  .  chateau  de 

Gaillon.     1850. 
DiDRON  :  Etude  sur  les  Vierges  ouvr antes.     1870. 
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1908. 
[Dijon]  :  Catalogue  du  nmsde.     1883. 
DiTCHFiELD  (P.  H.)  and  Clinch  (G.)  :  Memorials  of 

Old  Kent.     1907. 
DoEHRiNG   (O.)    and    Voss    (G.) :    Meisterwerke    der 

Kunst  aits  Sachsen  und  Thuringen.     1905. 
DoLLMAN  (F.  T.) :   Examples  of  Ancient  Pulpits  in 

England.     1 849. 
DoMANiG  (C) :  Portrdtmedaillen. 

,,  ,,      Die  deutsche  Medaille.     1907. 

DoppELMAYR  (J.  G.) :  Hist.  Nachricht  v.d.  Number g 

Kilns  tier.     1730. 
DouAis  (C) :  Les  stalks  .  .  .  de  Saint e- Marie  dAuch. 
DucANGE  (C.  D.) :  Glossarium.     1840-50. 

xix 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

DuNLOP(J.  C):  History  of  Fiction .     1 8 1 6. 
DuRAND  (G.) :  Monographie  de  Idglise  cath.  d Amiens. 

1903. 
„         ,,       Symbolism   of  Churches  and  Church 
Ornaments. 
[Durham]  :    Ancient  Rites  and   Monuments  of  the 
Cathedral  Church  of  Durham.     1672.    [Surtees 
Society.] 
[DuRSCH  Collection]  :  now  in  Lorenz-Kapelle,  Rott- 

weil. 
Du  SoMMERARD  (E.) :  Les  arts  au  moyen  dge.   1838-46. 
„  ,,       Les  arts  somptuaires.    1838-46. 

,,  ,,       Musde  des  Thermes  et  .  .  .  de 

Cluny.     1852. 

Enlart  (C.) :  Manuel  darchdol.  franqaise.     1802. 
Erculei  (R.)  :  Intaglio  e  tarsia  in  legno.     1885. 
Erman  :  Deutsche  Medailleure.     1884. 
Essenwein  :    Katalog  der  in   Germ,   museum   .    .    . 

Originalskulpturen.     1890. 
Evans  (E.  P.) :  Animal  Sy?nbolism  in  Ecclesiastical 

Architecture.      1896. 
Even  (E.  van.)  :  Louvain  Monuments. 

Fabriczy  (C.  v.)  :  F.  Brunelleschi.     1892. 
Fairholt  (F.  W.) :  Miscellanea  graphica.     1857. 
Falke  (J.  V.) :  Geschichte  des  deutschen  Kunstgewerbes. 

1888. 
Ferrari  (G.)  :  //  legno  tie  If  arte  Italiana.     1910. 
FiNOCHiETTi :  Delia  scultura  e  delta  tarsia  in  legno. 

1873- 
FiSENNE  (L.   V.) :    Kunstdenkmaler  des   Mtttelalters. 

1880. 
Flechzig   (E.)  :    Sdchsische  Bildnerei    tmd    Malerei. 

1909. 
FoGOLARi  (G.) :    Sculture   in   legno  del  sec  xii.     (In 

L'Arte,  1903.) 
Ford  :  Handbook  for  Travellers  in  Spain.     1846. 

XX 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

FoRRER  (L.) :  Biographical  Dictionary  of  Medallists. 

1904. 
Frullini  :  Holz  Sciilpttiren.     1884. 

Gailhabaud  :  L! architecture  du  v^»"  ate  xvii'*"*  sidcle. 

1857- 
Gasquet  (Abbot)  :  The  Greater  Abbeys  of  Engla^id. 

1908. 

,,  ,,  Parish  Life,     1909. 

Gautier(T.):  Voyage  en  Esp ague.     1845. 

GiBNEY  (J.  S.) :  Subjects  taken  fro7n  Lincoln  Cathedral. 

1870. 

Giraudet  :  Les  artistes  tourangeaux. 

GoLDSCHMiDT  (A.) :  Studicn  zur  Geschichte  sdchsischen 

Sculpt  ur.     1902. 

Gonse  (L.)  :  Les  chefs-dceuvre  des  niusdes  de  la  France. 

1904. 

,,        ,,       La  sculpture  f rang,  depuis  le  i4''««  si^cle. 

1895- 
Graesse  (J.  G.):  Guide  de  r amateur.     1871. 
Grange  (A.   de  la)  and   Cloquet  (L.)  :   Etudes  sur 

rart  it  Tournai. 
Gu^N^BAULT  (L.  J.):  Diet,  iconograpkique.     1845. 

Haack  (F.)  :  Friedrich  Herlin,  sein  Leben  und  IVerke. 
1900. 
,,         ,,       Hans  Schuchlein.     1900. 

Habich   (G.)  :    Studien    zur    deutschen  Renaissance- 
medaille.     1906. 

Haendeker(B.)  :  Studien  fiir  Geschichte  der spanischen 
Plastik.     1900. 

Hamilton  (A.) :   The  Art  JVorknia7iship  of  the  Maori 
Race.     1 896. 

Harrod  (H.):  Gleanings  a^nong  the  Castles  and  Con- 
vents of  Norfolk.     1857. 

Harvey  (E.  G.)  :  Mullyon,  its  History  and  Antiqttities. 

1875- 

xxi 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Hastings    (G.)  :   Siena,    its   Architecture   and  Art. 

1 90 1. 
Heffner-Alteneck    (J.    v.):    Costumes   .  .  .   ceuvres 

(fart  du  moyen  dge.     1840-54. 
H Eiss  (A.) :  Les  niddailleurs  de  la  renaissance.   1 88 1 -92. 
Helbig  (J.) :  Hist,  de  la  sculpt,  et  des  arts  plastiques  a 

Lidge. 
Hems   (H.)  :  Rood  and  other  Screens  in  Devonshire. 

1896. 
Hewett  (J.    W.)  :    Early    IVoodcarving  in    Exeter 

Cathedral.     1 849. 
HiERSEMANN  :  Deutschc  und  niederldndische  Holzbild- 

werke. 
Hirth   (G.)  :    Der  Fornienschatz.     And  in   progress. 

1877. 
Hyacinthe  (R.  p.)  :  Hist,  de  la  cdlebre  statue  de  N.D. 

du  chant  d'oiseaux. 

Jack  (G.) :  IVoodcarving.     1903. 
Jackson:  IVoodcarving.     1902. 
Jessopp  (Rev.  A.) :  Studies  by  a  recluse.     1893. 
Jones  (O.) :  The  Grammar  of  Or namejtt.     1856. 
Josephi  (W.)  :  Die  IVerke  plastischer  Kunst .     1910. 
JouiN  (M.  H.):  Esthdtique  du  sculpt eur.     1888. 
Jourdain  and  Duval:  La  cat  hddr  ale  dA  miens.   1867. 
Jupp(E.  B.):   The  Company  of  Carpenters.     1887. 

Kellen  (D.  van  der)  :  Le  moyen  dge  et  la  renaiss.  dans 

les  Pays-Bas.     1864. 
King  :  Sttidy  Book  of  MedicBval  Architecttire.     1858. 
Kleinclausz    (A.) :     Claus    Sluter    et    la    sculpture 

bourguignojtne.     1905. 
Knackfuss  :    Monographien.      (See   Durer,    Vischer, 

Krafft,  Stoss,  etc.,  in  this  collection.) 
KoPERA  (F.) :  fVit  Stwosz.     1908. 
Kraus   (F.    H.):    Geschichte   der  kirchlichen   Kunst. 

1897. 

xxii 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Labarte  (P.) :  Histoire  de  lart  industyiel.     1847. 
Lafond  (P.) :  La  Sculptuve  espagnole.     1909. 
Lambert  (J.  M.) :  Two  Thousand  Years  of  Gild  Life. 

1891. 
Lange  (K.)  :  Petey  Flotner.     1907. 
Langlois(E.  H.):  Lincendiedela  Cath.dc  Rouen.  1823. 

,,  ,,         Stalles  de  la  Cath.  de  Rouen.     1838. 

Leisching  (J.)  *  Fignrale  Holzplastik.     1908. 
Lenormant   (C.)  :     Trdsor    de    Nnmismatiqne   et  de 

Glyptique.     1 834-46. 
Lepszy(L.):  Krakan.     1907. 
Leroy  :  Mater iales  y  docnmentos  del  arte  espaiiol. 
[Leroy,  Martin]  :  Catalogue  of  Collection.     1906. 
Lessing  (O.)  :  HolzscJinitzereien  .  .  .  in  Kunstgewerbe 

Museum,  Berlin.     1882. 
Lethaby  (W.  R.) :  Westminster  Abbey,     1906. 
Letts  :  Manchester  Misereres.     1 886. 
Lettu    (G.    G.)  :    Guide   dans    V^glise  de  S"    Marie 

d'Auch.     N.D. 
Leversage  (P.) :  History  of  Bristol  Cathedral.     1854. 
LiJBKE  (W.) :  Geschichte  der  Blast ik.     1884. 
Lucot   (M.   le   Chanoine)  :    La   Vierge  de  Boulan- 

court. 

MacQuoid  (P.) :  History  of  English  Furniture.    1906. 
Mader  (F.)  :  Loy  Hering.     1905. 
Maeterlinck  (L.) :  Le  genre  satirique.     1907. 

,,  ,,      Roger    van    der    Weyden    et  les 

imagiers  de  Tournai.     1901. 
Male  (E.)  :  Lart  religieux  du  xiii^""  sidcle  en  France. 

1902. 
Marchal  (E.)  :  La  sculpttire  et  les  chefs-doeuvres  de 

Forfevrerie  beige.     1895. 
Metman  and  Bri^re  :  Le  Bois.    [Photos,  only.] 
Meyer  (A.  G.) :  Donatello.     1904. 
Michel    (E.),    (ed.    by):    Histoire    de    lart.       1905. 
(In  progress.) 

xxiii 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

MiCHiELS  (J.  A.) :  L Art  flamand  dans  lest  ct  le  viidi 

de  la  France.     1877. 
Miller  (F.) :  JVoodcarving.     1885. 
Minns     (Rev.     G.     W.)  :      Notes     on     Roodscreens. 

1867. 
Moke  (H.  D.):  Les  splendeurs  de  VArt  en  Belgiqiie, 

1839. 

MoLiNiER  (E.) :  Histotre  de  lArt.     1896. 

Monget:  La  Chartreuse  de  Dijon.     1898. 
MoNTANET   (Mgr.   B.)  :     Traitd  diconographie   chrd- 

tie^ine.     1890. 
Moore  (T.  S.):  Albert  Dilrer.     1905. 
MoREAU  (A.) :  Menbles  et  objets  dart.     1871. 
Mueller  and  Heideloff:  Die  Kttnst  des  Mitt elalters 

in  Schwaben.     1 84 1 . 
MuNTZ  (E.) :  Les  Arts  a  la  cour  des  Papes.     1878-82. 
,,         ,,       Les  prdcursenrs  de  la  renaissance.     1882. 
,,         ,,       La  Renaissance  .  .  .  Italie.     1885. 
,,         ,,       Histoire  de  r Art  pendant  la  renaissance. 
1889-95. 
MiJNZENBERGER  (E.) :  Zur  Kenntniss  der  nnttelalter- 

lichen  Altdre  Dentschlands.     1885- 1890. 
MuRR  (Ch.  G.  v.)  :   Beschreibnng  .    .  .  Merkiviirdig' 
keiten  in  Niirnberg.     1778. 


Nagler:  Kunstler  Lexikon.     1835-52. 

Neudorffer    (J.) :    Schreib   und   Rechenmeisters   zu 
Niirnberg.     Ed.  1875. 

Nichols  (J.):  Illustrations  of  Manners  and  Expenses 
from  Churchwardens'  Accounts.     1797. 

Niedermayer    (A.) :     Kunstgeschichte    .    .     .    Stadt 
IVilrzburg.     1 868. 

Niffle-Anciaux   (E.)  :    Les    repos    de  fdsiis   et    les 
berqeaux  reliquaires.      1896. 

NoAKE  (J.) :   The  Monastery  and  Cathedral  of  Wor- 
cester.    1 866. 
xxiv 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

NoAKE  (J.) :    Notes  and  Queries  for  IVorcester shire. 

1856. 
[Nurnberg]  :    Catalogue    der   origmalen   Sculptnren, 

1892. 

Odelberg  (H.)  :  Les  re  tables  de  Strengnas.    [In  Ami. 

de  l^ Acad.  dArcIUol.  de  Belgique,  t.  Hi) 
Otte    (D.    H.)  :    Handbtich   der  kirchlichen   Ktinst- 

archdologie.     1885. 

Pacheco  (F.)  :  Arte  de  la  pintura.     1649. 
[Pannwitz  Collection]  :   Die  Sammhmg  von  Pann- 

mitz.     1905. 
[Paris]  :  Trocadero.    Exposition  retrospective  de  Part 

franqais.     1 878. 
Parker  (J.  H.) :  Glossary  of  Terms  .  .  .  Gothic  Archi- 
tecture.    Ed.  1896. 
Pauli  (R.)  :  Drei  volkwirthschaftliche  Denkschriften. 

1878. 
Perkins  (C.  C.)  :  Italian  Sculptors.     1868. 

,,  ,,         Tuscan  Sculptors.     1864. 

Perrot  (G.)  and  Chipiez  (C.)  :  Histoire  de  l Art  dans 

fantiquitd.     1 882 .      1 890 . 
Petrie  (W.  M.  F.)  :  History  of  Egypt.     1896. 
Pfleiderer  (R.)  :  Das  Miinster  zu  Ulni.     1905. 
Pfnor   (R.)  :    Ornementation    icsuelle    de    toutes    les 

dpoques.     1867. 
Philippi  (A.):  Die  Kunst .  .  .  in  Dent schland und den 

Niederldnden. 
Phipson  (Miss  E.):   Choirstalls  and  their  Carvings. 

1896. 
PiOT  (E.),    (Ed.    by) :    Monuments  et  Mdmoires.     (In 

progress.) 
Pit  (M.  A.) :  La  Sculpture  hollandaise.     1903. 
Pollen  (J.  H.) :  Ancient  and  Modern  Furniture  and 

Woodwork.     1875. 

XXV 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Prior  (E.  S.)  :  History  of  Gothic  Art  in  England.  1900. 

,,         ,,         Cathedral  Builders  in  England.    1905. 
PiJCKLER  LiMPURG  C^"^  :  Die  Nilmberger  BUduerkimst. 
PuGiN  (A.  W.) :  Chancel  Screens  and  Roodlofts.    1851. 

„  „  True  Principles  of  Pointed  or  Chris- 

tian Architecture.     1841. 

,,  ,,  Contrasts.     1841. 

OuATREMfeRE    DE    QuiNXY   (A.    C.) :    Dict .   Hist.    de 

r  ArcJiitectnre. 
QuiCHERAT  (J.) :  Melanges  dArcMologie.     1886. 
QuiNTERO  (P.) :  Sillas  de  coro.     1890. 

Rahn   (J.) :    Geschichte  der  bildenden   Knnst   in   der 

Schweiz,     1 890. 
Ram^e    (D.)  :    Menbles  religieux    du  nioyen   dge    et 

de  la  renaissance.     1 864. 
Read  (C.  H.):  The  IVaddesdon  Bequest.     1902. 
RiiAU  (L.):  Peter  Vischer.     1909. 
Reber  (F.  v.)  and  Bayersdorfer  (A.) :   Klassischer 

Skulpturenschatz.     1 900. 
Redfarn  (W.  B.)  :   Ancient  IVood  and  Ironwork  in 

Cambridge.     1 886. 
RiiE  (Dr.  P.  D.) :  Nuremberg  and  its  art  [transl.  by 

G.  H.  Palmer.]     1905. 
Reil  (J.) :  Die friihchristliche  Darstellungen  der  Kren- 

zigung.     1904. 
"RunmRs:  Peter  Plot ner.     1890. 
Renan  (E.)  :  Etat  des  beaux-arts  en  France  an  xiv'"" 

sidcle. 
Reymond  (M.):  La  Sculpture  Florentine.     1898. 
Ricci  (C.) :  La  Mostra  Senese.     1904. 
RiDSLOB  (E.) :  Das  Kirchenportal.     1909. 
RiEHL  (B.) :  Geschichte  der  Stein-  und  Holzplastik  in 

Oberbayern.     1898. 
RiGGENBACH  :  Die  Chorgestilhle  des  Mittelalters. 
Robinson  (F.  S.):  English  Furniture.     1905. 

xxvi 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

RocHEMONTEix  (M.  de)  :   Les  dglises   romanes  de  la 

Haute  Ativergne.     1902. 
Roe  (F.)  :  Ancient  Coffers  and  Cupboards. 

,,       „      Old  Oak  Fur  nit  lire.      1905. 
Roger   MiLfes   (F.) :    Comment    discerner  les    styles. 

1896. 
Rombout  (P.)  and  Lerins  (T.  van)  :  Les  Liggeren  et 

autres  archives  historiques  de  la  glide  anversoise 

de  Saint-Luc.     1872. 
Ron  DOT  (N.) :  L'  Art  du  bois  d  Lyon.     1899. 
RoosvAL  (J.) :  Schnitzaltdre  in  schwedischen  KircJien. 

1903. 
RowE  (E.) :  Art  of  Practical  Wood-carvmg.     1907. 
,,         ,,       French    Wood-carvings  from    Museums. 

1896. 
RusKiN  (J.) :   The  Bible  of  Amiens.     1880. 

SackexN  (E.  v.)  :  Album  .  .  .  kunstwerke  .  .  .  Ambraser 

Sammlung.     1884. 
„  ,,        Der  Flilgelaltar  zu  Sand  JVolfgang. 

1858. 
Sancet  (L.)  :  Stalks  de  la  CatlMrale  dAuch.     i860. 
Sauerlandt  (M.)  :  Deutsche  Plastik  des  Mittelalters. 

1909. 
Sausay  (A.) :  Musie  de  la  Renaissance.     1864. 
Sauvageot  (C.  and  L.) :  Stalles  du  xiii^""  sidcle  a  N.  D. 

de  la  Roche.     1863. 
Savage    (Canon)  :     Woodwork    of  Halifax   Church. 

1910. 
ScARDEONius   (B.) :    De  Antiquitate    urbis   Patavii. 

1560. 
ScHAuss  (E.  V.) :  Die  Schatzkanwier  des  bayr.  Kdnigs- 

hauses  in  Milnchen.     1908. 
ScHEUBER  (J.) :    Die  mittelalterlichen  ChorstUhle   in 

der  Schweiz.     19 10. 
ScHLOSSER  (J.  V.) :  Album  A usgewdhlter  Gegenstande. 

1901. 

xxvii 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

ScHONEMARK  (D.  G.) :  Der  Kruzifixus.     1908. 

ScHOTTMULLER  (F.) :  Do7iatello.     1904. 

ScHUBRiNGS  (P.) :  Die  Plastik  Sienas  hi  Qjiattrocento. 

1907. 
ScHUETTE  (M.) :  Der  SchwdbtscheSchnitzaltar.     1907. 
Scott  (L.)  :  Filippo  di  Ser  Brimellesco.     1901. 
Sentetz  (P.) :  Notice  historiqtie  .   .  .   Saiftte  Marie 

d'  Anch. 
Sepulchral  Monuments  : — 

Baker  (G) :   History  and  Antiquities  of  North' 
anipton.     1822-30. 

Blomefield  :  History  of  Norfolk.     1805-10. 

Blore  :  Momunent at  Remains.     1826, 

Collinson  (J.) :  History  of  Somerset.     1791. 

Cox(T.):  Magna  Brita7inia.     1720. 

Dallaway  (J.) :   History  of  Western  Division  of 
Sussex.     1819-30. 

Eyton    (R.    W.) :     Antiquities    of    Shropshire. 
1853-60. 

Fryer  ( A.  C. ) :  Wooden  Monumental  Effigies.    1 9 1 o. 

Glover  (S.):  History  of  County  of  Derby.     1829. 

Gough  (R.) :  Septdchral  Monuments.     1799. 

Grose  (F.):  Antiquarian  Repertory.     1807-9. 
,,        ,,       Antiquities  of  England  and  Wales. 

Hartshorne     (A.).         (See      Victorian     County 
Histories :  Northamptonshire^ 

Hartshorne  (C.).-  Sepulchral  Remains  in  North- 

ampto7ishire.     1840. 
,,  ,,        Funeral  Monume^its.     1840. 

Hartshorne  (R.) :   Effigies  of  Northamptonshire. 
1867. 

Hutchinson  (W.):    History   and  Antiquities  of 
Durham.     1 794. 

Lipscombe  (G.) :  History  and  Antiquities  of  Buck- 
in  gha^n.     1847. 

Lysons(S.):  Magna  Britannia.     1808- 1825. 
xxviii 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Manning  and  Brayc  :  History  and  Antiquities  of 

Surrey.     1 804. 
Morant  (P.) :  History  and  Antiquities  of  Essex. 

1768. 
Stothard  (C.  A.) :  Monumental  Effigies.     1817-32. 
Strutt :     History    and    Antiquities    of   Essex. 

1845- 
Thoroton  (R.) :  Anttqnittes  of  NottingJiamshire. 

1677-1797. 

Weaver:  Funeral  Monuments.     1840. 

Whitaker  (T.  D.) :  Loidis  and  Elmete.     1816. 
Serrano  (Fatigati  E.)  :  Retablos  Espanoles  Ogivales. 

1902. 
[Siena]:  Exhibition  of  Ancient  Art.     1904. 
Singleton  (Miss  E.)  :  Furniture  of  our  Forefathers. 

1901. 

„  ,,  French  and  English  Furniture. 

1904. 

,,  ,,  Dutch  and  Flemish  Furniture. 

1907. 
SixT  (Fr.)  :  Chromk  der  Stadt  Gerolzhofejt. 
Spiers  (R.  Phene)  :   The  Styles  of  Ornament.     1910. 
[Spitzer  Collection]  :  Catalogue.     1890-92. 
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1907. 
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1908. 
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Stiavelli  :  Pescia  nella  vita  privata.     1903. 
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1854. 
Streit  (T.)  :    Tylmann   Riemenschneider ,  Leben   und 

Kunstwerke.     1888. 

xxix 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

SvFiKO  {].  D.):  y^r^e  Pisc7}/(r.     1904. 

Talbert  (B.  J.):  Examples  of  Ancient  and  Modern 

Furniture. 
Talbot    (J.    Taylor):     Collection    at    New     York. 

1906. 
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XXXI 1 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 


CHAPTER     I 

INTRODUCTORY— PREHISTORIC  ART— WOOD 
SCULPTURE  IN  ANCIENT  EGYPT 

WE  may  not,  perhaps,  be  able  to  claim  for 
wood  sculpture  that  in  any  examples  that 
have  come  down  to  us,  throughout  the  ages 
or  in  any  land,  the  general  level  of  excellence  has  reached 
as  high  as  that  of  sculpture  in  marble  or  in  stone. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  produce  che/s-d'ceuvre  equal  to 
the  most  famous  of  those  in  bronze  or  in  the  precious 
metals.  We  may  have  to  be  content  to  class  it  among 
the  minor  arts — whatever  that  indefinite  term  ought 
strictly  to  mean.  Yet  if  we  should  take  but  one  depart- 
ment, that  of  figure  sculpture,  whether  we  consider  it  as 
statuary-,  as  smaller  works  in  the  round  or  as  bas-reliefs, 
it  may  be  fearlessly  asserted  that  undeniable  masterpieces 
have  been  produced  which  will  bear  comparison,  at  least, 
with  anything  in  the  whole  range  of  the  kindred  arts. 
And,  as  we  shall  see,  it  may  be  claimed  that,  at  any  rate 
in  Renaissance  times,  the  creations  of  the  goldsmiths' 
or  the  bronze-workers'  masterpieces  were  often  first  of 
all  conceived  and  executed  in  the  highest  perfection  of 
detail  by  the  chisel  of  the  wood  sculptor.  Having 
served  their  purpose  it  is  unfortunately  true  that,  owing 
possibly  to  their  fragile  or  perishable  nature,  it  is  but 
in  rare  instances  that  these  productions  have  come 
down  to  us.     We  need  not,  of  course,  stay  to  consider 

A  I 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

what  is  obvious,  that  is  the  analogy  which  may  be 
drawn  between  these  models  and  those  in  clay  or  wax 
of  the  marble  sculptor  or  bronze  founder. 

If  we  have  to  hew  out  of  wood  a  figure  of  monu- 
mental proportions,  the  method  by  which  we  accom- 
plish it,  the  canons  of  art  which  we  follow,  resemble 
those  where  the  material  is  marble  or  stone.  For 
work  of  lesser  dimensions  it  may  be  compared  with 
ivory  carving.  Illustrations  will  be  given  of  carvings 
on  so  minute  a  scale  that  they  are  justly  called  micro- 
scopic, and  yet  are  no  trivial  tours  de  force.  Wood 
is  not  like  clay  or  wax,  a  plastic,  or  rather,  a  flexible 
material.  It  is  for  chiselling,  not  moulding.  It  has 
its  own  special  qualities.  There  are  many  varieties, 
and  it  abounds  in  the  forests  throughout  the  world. 
It  is  less  fragile,  tougher,  and  more  amenable  than 
stone.  It  has  more  elasticity  than  marble,  possessing 
a  fibrous  nature  in  various  degrees.  Certain  kinds 
differ  in  the  closeness  of  their  grain,  some  being  com- 
pact, while  others  are  loose  and  open.  Besides  differ- 
ences in  colour,  wood  possesses  also  many  beautiful 
varieties  in  its  veins  and  knots,  but  these  are  qualities 
with  which  we  shall  not  be  concerned.  Except  for 
tarsia  work,  and  in  certain  kinds  of  furniture,  they  are 
inconsistent  with  the  aims  of  the  sculptor  proper. 
The  colour  is  of  importance,  and  covers  a  considerable 
range  from  that  approaching  the  ivory  white  in  the 
elm,  through  the  different  shades  of  box  which  plays  so 
important  a  part  in  our  subject,  to  the  deep  jetlike 
black  of  ebony.  Besides  the  colour,  age  brings  to 
wood  a  mellowness  and  diversity  of  tone  which  may 
be  likened  to  the  patina  of  bronze  and  other  metals. 
And  in  addition  to  these  qualities  it  may  be  dyed  or 
otherwise  coloured.  As  a  material  the  disadvantages 
are  its  perishable  nature,  and  the  liability  to  warp  or 
twist,  which  no  amount  of  seasoning,  in  some  varieties, 
can  counteract. 


/' 


i 


MATERIAL    AND    PROCEDURE 

Considered  as  a  medium  for  sculpture,  wood  has 
message  of  its  own,  which,  for  those  who  can 
truly  understand  it,  must  be  delivered  in  a  certain 
way  by  which  it  is  distinguished  from  the  tech- 
nique employed  when  other  materials  are  used. 
It  is  especially  suited  to  the  expression  of  the 
grotesque,  and,  as  its  own  nature  would  obviously 
suggest,  to  the  illustration  of  plant-form,  foliage,  and 
vegetation  in  their  most  free-growing  character.  Yet 
it  must  not  imitate  nature,  but  inspire  the  ideas  sug- 
gested by  natural  growth,  its  form,  development, 
and  ever-pushing  vitality.  To  do  this  does  not 
necessarily  imply  naturalism.  The  range  is  immense 
in  the  scope  afforded  between  the  suggestive  conven- 
tionality of  the  art  of  mediaeval  times  and  the 
mechanical  imitation  which  distinguishes  the  work  of 
the  much-bepraised  English  decorator  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  methods  of  the  statuary  and 
figure  sculptor  in  wood  differ  from  those  of  the  marble 
sculptor  in  that  he  goes  straight  at  his  work,  and 
employs  no  pointer.  His  assthetic  aims  and  his  tech- 
nique differ.  He  is  impelled  towards  realism  and, 
almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  towards  the  addition  of 
colour.  The  danger  in  his  path  is  a  too  faithful  de- 
pendence on  and  following  of  the  methods  employed 
in  great  sculpture  in  stone,  marble,  or  bronze,  or  even 
in  forgings  and  castings  in  iron.  He  is  apt,  at  times, 
to  forget  the  limitations  and  special  qualities  of  his 
material. 

The  first  carving  in  wood  was  the  parent  of  all 
sculpture  in  succeeding  ages,  and  he  who  first  cut  it 
for  decorative  purposes  was  the  first  sculptor.  It  would 
have  suggested  itself  to  the  prehistoric  artist  as  a 
handy  material  long  before  the  bone  remnant  of  a  feast. 
For  modelling,  possibly  earth  in  the  shape  of  some 
tenacious  clay  would  have  preceded  it.  Then  would 
have  come  the  whittling  of  a  stick  or  block  obtained 

3 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

from  the  nearest  wood.  Very  soon  the  savage,  with  the 
natural  love  of  man  for  ornament  and  display,  would 
have  carved  the  handle  of  his  war-club  with  lines  and 
curves  and  patterns,  serving  at  the  same  time  to  give  it 
a  better  grip. 

The  South  Sea  islander  to  the  present  day  decorates 
his  fighting  canoe  with  a  deeply  incised  spiral  orna- 
ment, which  seems  to  have  descended  with  little 
variation  from  the  most  distant  times.  The  earliest 
art  was  an  imitation  of  nature,  an  attempt  to  transmit 
to  others,  in  some  tangible  form,  an  impression, 
appealing  to  his  imagination,  of  what  the  artist  saw. 
From  that  time  onwards  no  one  will  deny  the  interest 
that  even  uncultured  efforts  will  excite,  and  the  charm 
from  the  very  naiveness  of  the  expression,  provided 
that  these  efforts  are  sincere. 

Allusions  to  wood  sculpture  and  to  images  of  wood 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures  might,  of  course,  be  quoted  to  a 
considerable  extent.  In  Genesis  we  read  how  Rachel 
stole  her  father's  images  and  carried  them  away.  In 
Isaiah  the  carpenter's  and  sculptor's  crafts  are  frequently 
mentioned  :  for  example,  how  graven  images  were 
made,  how  the  carpenter  '  marketh  out  with  a  compass ' 
and  '  maketh  it  after  the  figure  of  a  man,  according  to 
the  beauty  of  a  man :  that  it  may  remain  in  the 
house'  (xliv.  13);  how  he  heweth  down  cedars  and  the 
cypress  and  the  oak,  which  he  uses  for  various  pur- 
poses, '  and  the  residue  thereof  he  maketh  a  god,  even 
his  graven  image'  (xliv.  17).  And  it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  do  more  than  refer  to  such  passages  in 
ancient  history,  as  where  we  learn  from  Pausanias  about 
Daedalus  who  carved  statues,  fourteen  centuries  or  so 
earlier,  which  still  existed  in  the  writer's  time ;  and 
of  the  mixed  wood  and  ivory  statues  in  the  temple 
of  Athene  Atlantis,  the  statue  of  Bacchus  in  ebony, 
gilt  except  the  face,  which  was  painted  ;  the  Jupiter  in 
wild  pearwood,  the  ^sculapius  in  willow,  a  head  of 

4 


IN    ANCIENT    ECxYPT 

Dionysius  of  olive,   and  many   more,   in  cypress  and 
other  woods,  painted,  gilded,  or  inlaid  with  gold. 

Such  information  as  this  is,  to  our  regret,  almost  all 
upon  which  we  can  rely  regarding  wood  sculpture  in 
ancient  Greece  and  the  Roman  empire :  actual  existing 
examples  are  rare  indeed.  But  of  a  still  more  ancient 
civilization — that  of  Egypt — we  are  more  fortunate  in 
the  remains  of  statuary  and  small  sculpture  in  wood 
which  are  not  surpassed  in  interest  by  any  other  sculp- 
tured records  whatever.  The  age  of  some  of  them, 
amounting  to  thousands  of  years  before  our  era,  is 
conjectural  only.  The  museum  at  Cairo,  as  is  fitting, 
possesses  the  finest  and  the  greater  number :  amongst 
them  the  famous  figure  of  the  Sheik  el  Beled.  The 
Louvre  is  rich,  in  quality  at  least,  but  the  examples  in 
our  British  Museum,  however  interesting  in  archaeo- 
logical interest,  are  sadly  deficient  in  beauty  and 
attraction.  That  we  look  to  Egypt  as  the  cradle  of  our 
race,  and  seek  in  her  monuments  for  traces  of  the 
earliest  efforts  made  by  man  in  the  expression  of  art,  is, 
of  course,  undeniable.  Amongst  these  earliest  efforts 
— that  is  of  an  art  which  appears  to  have  already 
attained  an  extraordinary  degree  of  development  and 
perfection,  for  the  earliest  we  possess  have  that  charac- 
ter— are  the  figures  and  statues  in  wood,  from  which 
two  or  three  will  be  selected  for  illustration.  More 
than  this  cannot  be  done  here,  for  no  pretension  is 
made  to  an  examination  of  ancient  Egyptian  art 
generally,  with  which  these  figures  are  so  intimately 
connected  that  we  should  soon  be  led  far  beyond  our 
limits  and  beyond  the  capacity  of  the  present  writer. 

At  a  period  of  the  world's  history  so  remote  as 
to  be  almost  fabulous,  but  may  be  counted  as  at 
least  sixty  centuries,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
earliest  examples  of  sculpture  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  Egypt  was  in  possession  of  a  fully 
developed    system    of    art.      This     system,    whether 

5 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

based  on  hieratic  traditions  or  on  a  natural  aptitude 
for  the  observation  of  nature,  has  in  its  way  never 
since  been  surpassed.  However  this  may  be,  we  are 
not  in  possession  of  sufficient  information  to  justify 
any  certainty  of  opinion  concerning  what  canons,  if  any, 
were  followed  by  the  sculptors  of  these  great  portrait 
figures,  whose  use  and  destination  will  presently  be 
alluded  to.  To  that  use,  added  to  the  dryness  of  the 
climate  and  to  the  rifling  or  systematic  examination  of 
the  numerous  tombs,  we  owe  the  preservation  of  these 
works  of  art  in  a  material  which,  under  ordinary 
conditions,  perishes  in  a  comparatively  short  time. 
Looking  at  these  wonderful  figures,  of  which  we  shall 
examine  a  few  of  the  most  striking,  remembering 
that  they  are  amongst  the  earliest  specimens  of  art 
of  which  we  have  any  knowledge,  and  that  any 
approach  to  their  actual  date  cannot  be  ascertained 
nearer  than  within  a  lapse  of  time  measured  by 
hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  years,  one  is  struck 
with  admiration  and  astonishment  at  the  height  of 
their  art,  the  perfection  of  their  execution.  We  know, 
without  being  able  to  account  for  the  fact,  that  the 
farther  we  go  back  in  the  history  of  the  arts  of  ancient 
Egypt — notably  in  the  case  of  sculpture — the  more 
advanced  appears  to  be  the  standard  to  which  they  had 
attained.  From  this  it  would  appear  that  the  age 
of  perfection  preceded  the  system  of  hieratic  dogmatism 
which,  in  the  course  of  time,  became  established  and 
ruled  by  rigid  laws.  In  these  wooden  figures,  as  in 
thousands  of  other  examples  of  all  kinds,  in  stone 
and  bronze,  statues  and  statuettes,  figurines  and  bas- 
reliefs,  the  individualism  of  the  artist  is  most  pro- 
nounced. There  is  evidence  of  an  absolute  liberty  of 
expression,  of  a  rendering  from  nature  drawn  by  the 
personal  observation  of  each  individual  artist.  They 
are  portraits  of  men  and  women  as  they  lived,  in  the 
surroundings  amongst  which  their  existence  had  been 
6 


IN    ANCIENT    EGYPT 

passed.  Whatever  the  material  used,  whether  it  be 
wood  or  limestone,  granite  or  bronze,  the  analogies 
are  so  great  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  consider 
them  apart,  though  the  wood  is  naturally  most  nearly 
approached  to  the  figures  in  soft  stone.  All  are  of  the 
same  type,  with  the  same  fidelity  to  nature,  the  same 
lifelike  expressions,  the  same  evidence  of  the  use  of  a 
living  model,  the  same  attention  to  anatomical  detail 
and  method  of  expressing  it.  For  this  method  is  not 
a  scientifically  applied  one,  the  result  of  established 
canons  of  art  which  later  ages  produced.  There  is  no 
undue  emphasis,  no  attempt  at  producing  an  artificial 
effect,  no  idea  of  art  in  fact.  Yet  in  its  impression- 
istic manner  it  suffices.  Its  naturalism  is  convincing, 
expressed  by  an  almost  sketchy  rdsunU  of  the  principal 
lines  and  masses  of  the  subject.  It  may  be  that  those 
whose  acquaintance  with  the  entire  history  of  the  rise 
and  progress  of  Egyptian  art  in  all  its  branches  is 
profound,  may  find  an  easy  solution  of  the  problem 
which  seems  to  be  involved  in  the  consideration  of 
these  wooden  figures  alone.  Many  questions  suggest 
themselves.  What  is  the  date  assigned  to  the  figure 
of  the  Sheik  el  Beled  ?  The  fourth  dynasty  ?  At 
how  many  thousands  of  years  before  our  era  is  this 
period  to  be  placed  ?  At  any  rate  at  some  remote 
period  of  man's  existence  on  earth,  at  a  period  of 
which  we  have  no  general  history,  still  less  a  know- 
ledge of  the  progress  —  we  see  here  with  astonish- 
ment a  system,  a  mannerism,  instinctively  adopted. 
That  is  to  say,  that  four  thousand  years  at  least  before 
our  era  we  find  in  Egyptian  sculpture  an  established 
system  of  art  at  such  a  state  of  perfection  that  it 
continues  unchanged  during  these  forty  centuries. 
By  what  successive  stages,  slow  or  quick,  by  what 
teaching  of  principles  or  canons,  by  what  laborious 
evolution  of  technique  it  was  accomplished,  that  is  what 
we  are  entirely  ignorant  about.     We  are  able  to  study 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

in  our  museums — at  any  rate  in  the  great  museum  at 
Cairo  —  innumerable  examples,  ranging  from  shreds 
and  tatters  to  those  possibly  oldest  figures  of  all,  the 
limestone  Hetep  and  Nefert,  as  fresh  and  perfect  as  if 
carved  last  week.  But  of  the  evolution  of  the  creative 
genius — nothing!  Yet  we  are  told  by  Egyptologists 
that  more  than  nine  thousand  years  ago  there  flourished 
in  the  valley  of  the  Nile  a  school  of  free  sculpture  with 
a  genius  surpassing  our  own.  It  is  a  great  gap — three 
thousand  years ! 

The  impression  produced  by  these  figures  will  be 
different  on  the  minds  of  some  from  that  which  is  con- 
veyed to  others.  For  my  own  part  I  am  unable  to 
reconcile  the  seeming  evidence  on  the  one  hand  of 
untaught  natural  genius,  on  the  other  of  the  apparently 
trained  comprehension  of  principles.  In  Egypt  the 
practice  of  statuary  is  coeval  with  the  earliest  efforts  in 
decorative  architecture.  It  would  appear  that  man  had 
no  sooner  emerged  from  his  primeval  condition  as  a 
pure  savage  than  he  exercised  his  imitative  faculties 
in  an  intelligent  manner,  and  set  about  constructing 
ideal  types  of  beauty  and  of  manly  vigour,  reproducing 
the  likenesses  of  everything  that  was  in  the  heavens 
above  and  in  the  earth  below.  Evidently  the  primitive 
races  would  begin  to  model,  and  to  model  well,  before 
any  principles  of  architecture  had  been  evolved,  and  they 
would  have  chosen  wood,  for  its  solidity,  before  clay. 
With  the  earliest  glimmering  of  religious  sentiment, 
and  the  first  requirements  for  the  construction  of  the 
idols  necessary  in  worship  and  ceremonial,  there  would 
have  been  a  tendency  to  the  establishment  of  hieratic 
laws,  and  of  a  kind  of  pictorial  language  for  which  no 
very  high  degree  of  perfection  in  expression  would  have 
been  necessary.  Certain  types  would  have  been  formed, 
and  perpetuated  by  transmission  from  age  to  age,  before 
the  idea  occurred  of  endeavouring  to  make  a  direct 
imitation  of  those  which  nature  provided  in  every  form 
8 


IN    ANCIENT    EGYPT 

of  life  around.  It  was  not  always  ignorance,  or  inability 
to  do  better,  which  produced  the  archaic  groups  and 
figures  which  we  associate  in  a  general  way  with  the 
monuments  of  ancient  Egypt.  It  was  deliberate  choice 
guided  if  not  dictated  by  hieratic  prescription.  And  so  w^e 
find  in  statues  and  bas-reliefs  certain  conventions  in  con- 
junction with  considerable  skill  in  rendering  the  human 
form  and  the  suggestion  of  movement.  The  body  is 
fronting,  the  head  in  profile:  the  whole  weight  is  thrown 
on  the  soles  of  the  feet :  one  foot  is  generally  advanced,  the 
right  in  the  case  of  men,  the  left  of  women  and  children, 
and  so  on.  As  time  went  on  two  currents  were  formed 
and  proceeded  on  two  different  principles.  The  one 
rigidly  adhered  to  the  precepts  and  dogmas  imposed 
by  hieratism ;  the  other,  which  finally  triumphed,  was 
in  the  direction  of  emancipation  from  these  trammels 
and  restrictions.  But,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
evolution  which  Nature  causes  to  be  repeated  over 
and  over  again,  in  art  as  in  more  important  matters, 
the  triumph,  or  arrival  at  perfection,  is  followed  by 
decadence.  The  early  loyal  efforts  at  faithfully  repro- 
ducing nature  little  by  little  induce  suggestions  of  what 
she  teaches.  We  learn  to  appreciate  the  ideal,  and 
little  by  little  the  highest  perfection  of  its  expression 
is  arrived  at,  only  to  fall  again,  little  by  little,  without 
pausing  for  a  moment  until,  as  an  anticlimax,  imitative 
realism  is  the  miserable  result.  It  is  not  without 
reason  that  a  question  of  too  great  importance  to  be 
followed  in  a  single  chapter  has  been  hinted  at.  It  is 
not  only  in  this  early  history  of  peoples  that  we  have 
to  remark  this  phenomenon,  this  unchangeable  law. 
In  one  form  or  other  we  shall  encounter  it  repeated 
over  and  over  again  as  we  pass  under  review  the  arts 
of  many  nations  from  the  times  when  we  are  in 
possession  of  evidence  of  their  beginnings  under 
conventional  forms  held  captive  by  the  restraints  of 
priestly  domination,    until   emancipation    from    these 

9 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

restrictions  leads  to  the  free  study  of  nature  herself. 
We  shall  be  confronted  everywhere  by  evidences  of 
the  forces  of  the  hieratism  of  convention  opposed  by 
the  struggle  to  represent  beauty  as  it  is  in  nature, 
unrestrained  by  the  trammels  of  tradition.  And  no 
sooner  is  the  height  of  beauty  in  the  ideal  reached 
than  it  is  followed  by  decline  and  degradation  and  the 
change  to  a  completely  new  system,  which  in  its  turn 
follows  the  same  path.  Early  sculptural  art  in  Egypt 
seems  to  have  possessed  a  considerable  amount  of 
originality  and  understanding  of  nature,  bound  though 
it  was  by  hieratic  laws,  even  if  less  rigidly  than  they 
were  imposed  later  on.  In  our  own  history  the  sub- 
jection to  theocratic  doctrines  and  the  imposition  of 
traditions  by  priests  held  peremptory  sway  during  a  long 
succession  of  centuries.  The  emancipation  began  only 
when  Gothic  art  was  nearing  its  apogee,  and  reached 
absolute  freedom  with  the  triumph  of  the  Renaissance. 
Ancient  Egyptian  statues  and  statuettes,  when  not 
representing  deities,  are — in  whatever  material — with- 
out exception,  portraits  of  individuals  executed  with 
the  utmost  exactness  and  fidelity  to  the  prevailing 
characteristics  and  habits  of  life  of  the  person  whose 
memory  it  was  desired  to  preserve.  We  are  not  called 
upon  to  follow  here,  in  any  detailed  way,  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  people.  It  is  sufficient  to  remem- 
ber that  all  these  statues  found  in  the  tombs  are,  as  it 
w^ere,  the  *  doubles '  of  the  deceased  personage  whose 
embalmed  body  lies  in  the  decorated  cartonnage  case 
and  massive  sarcophagus.  Briefly  stated,  the  idea  was 
that  the  spirit,  separated  at  death  from  the  body,  required 
a  material  support  of  some  kind  for  the  continuance  of 
its  existence  or  at  least  some  kind  of  local  habitation. 
The  body  itself  was  preserved  by  embalming ;  other- 
wise the  soul  would  die  a  second  and  definite  death. 
And  as  the  mummy  itself  might  disappear,  it  was 
represented  by  one  or  more  statues — exact  representa- 

lO 


STATUES    IN    TOMBS 

tions  of  the  dead — by  which  life  was  perpetuated.  We 
may  gather,  indeed,  that  these  reproductions  had  to  be, 
as  far  as  possible,  absolute  facsimiles  of  the  form  of  the 
deceased,  with  no  concessions  in  the  elimination  of 
imperfect  features,  no  attempt  at  the  ideal,  no  flattery  in 
exaggeration  of  beauty  and  expression  :  in  short,  a  real 
body  in  stone  or  wood  as  the  case  might  be,  with  more 
than  photographic  detail.  Thus  could  a  second  him- 
self, clothed  as  he  was  clothed,  in  his  most  accustomed 
attitude,  wearing  the  insignia  of  his  rank,  or  bearing  the 
usual  instruments  of  his  occupation,  take  his  place  in  the 
tomb  as  the  familiar  resting-place  of  the  soul.  Are  they 
then  works  of  art  ?  It  is  a  question  perhaps  not  difficult 
to  answer.  But  we  may  be  sure  that  they  must  have 
been  posed  during  life  and  the  result  of  long  observa- 
tion. And  it  is  because  there  is  evidence  in  them  of 
appreciation  and  of  capability  of  seizing  salient  points 
and  of  omitting  the  unimportant  in  a  masterly  manner 
— whether  intuitive  or  acquired  by  training  we  know 
not — because  of  this  impressionism,  that  we  should 
place  them  on  so  high  a  level.  For  we  must  not 
assume  that  the  copying  was  so  very  exact  and  mechani- 
cal. On  the  contrary,  the  artist  knew  how  to  emphasize 
by  exaggeration.  He  knew,  for  example,  the  import- 
ance of  the  eye,  as  the  key  to  character,  as  the  messenger 
of  thought  from  the  brain.  We  are  struck  at  once  in  such 
statues  as  that  of  the  sheik,  or  especially  of  the  scribe,  in 
that  of  the  princess  Nefert,  and  in  all  those  which  are 
really  portraits,  with  the  vitality  of  the  head,  the  reality 
of  the  expression.  In  those  in  wood  with  which  we  are 
now  particularly  occupied,  the  size  and  power  of  the  eye 
was  heightened  by  means  of  an  artificial  one,  an  inlay 
of  coloured  marble,  or  some  vitreous  substance.  The 
Egyptians,  it  is  true,  were  in  the  habit  of  increasing 
the  apparent  size  in  life  by  the  use  of  kohl,  and  the 
exaggeration  is  to  be  found  in  all  their  portraiture,  in 
the  admirable  funeral  masks  and  the  like,  and  even  in 

II 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  colossal  granite  statues  which  represent,  if  they  are 
not  strictly,  portraits  of  the  rulers.  What  is  not  to  be 
forgotten  is  that  it  is  held  that  our  wood  and  other 
statues  are  older  still  by  centuries  than  any  of  the 
colossi.  Still,  in  dating  them,  we  cannot  be  guided 
solely  by  our  artistic  perception.  We  are  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Egyptologist  and  must  accept  his  ruling.  Other- 
wise we  might  ask  for  evidence  of  tendencies  to  idealiza- 
tion, and  conclude  that  Egypt  must  have  long  been  at 
the  height  of  her  civilization  before  her  art  had  arrived 
at  such  a  conception.  And  when  we  come  to  reckon 
with  such  figures  as  the  sheik  or  the  scribe  we  feel 
that  the  sculptor  must  have  been  perfectly  well  aware 
of  the  impossibility  of  translating  into  wood  or  stone 
that  which  has  other  qualities  :  that  his  method  implied 
convention,  that  he  could  only  succeed  in  conveying  an 
impression,  that  all  he  could  give  was  petrified  life  and 
arrested  motion.  The  statue  in  wood  known  as  the 
Sheik  el  Beled  was  discovered  by  Mariette  in  one  of 
the  tombs  of  the  necropolis  of  Memphis.  It  may  be 
taken  as  a  type  of  the  Egyptian  of  the  period,  but  so 
little  has  this  changed  in  the  course  of  sixty  centuries 
or  more,  that  we  are  told  that  no  sooner  was  it  seen  by 
the  native  workmen  engaged  in  making  the  excavation, 
than  they  cried  out,  *  It  is  the  sheik  of  the  village  I ' 
And  so,  whoever  he  may  have  been  in  life,  and  what- 
ever his  occupation,  that  is  now,  and  always  will  be,  his 
designation. 

A  short  description  only  will  be  required  to  supple- 
ment the  illustration  here  given  {Frontispiece).  He 
stands  solidly  planted  on  both  feet,  holding  with  raised 
left  hand  his  long  staff  or  walking-stick,  head  cropped 
close  (perhaps  for  the  addition  of  a  wig),  fat,  jolly  face, 
rather  low  forehead ;  short,  thick  nose ;  intelligent, 
obedient  eyes ;  quiet,  contented  smile,  as  if  resigned  to 
his  position  as  a  minor  local  official ;  broad  shoulders ; 
prominent,  fleshy  breast;  hips,  arms,  and  legs  too  solidly 

12 


METHODS    OF    COLOURING 

constructed,  and  furnished  with  an  indication  of  tre- 
mendous muscular  development ;  long,  flat  feet,  admir- 
able suggestion  of  movement  in  the  easy  and  natural 
pose  as  if  stopping  for  the  moment — that  is  the  man 
known  sometimes  also  as  Ra-em-Ke,  the  name  of  the 
owner  or  inhabitant  of  the  tomb.  It  is  the  art  of  the 
nude,  and  art  of  an  advanced  kind,  whether  of  natural 
genius  or  by  training.     Either  hypothesis  is  tenable. 

The  question  of  the  colouring  of  sculpture  will  form 
later  on  an  important  section  of  our  subject.  The 
practice  was  certainly  prevalent  in  the  earliest  art  of 
Egypt,  and  may  be  briefly  referred  to  here  with  regard 
to  such  figures  as  the  one  just  described.  It  was, 
indeed,  usual  to  colour  men  figures  red  or  a  deep 
reddish  brown,  the  women  yellow,  more  or  less  deep 
according  to  their  lower  or  higher  social  position,  repre- 
senting, as  it  were,  delicacy  of  complexion.  Generally 
speaking,  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  painting  of 
sculpture  the  Egyptians  either  had  no  knowledge  of, 
or  did  not  care  for,  the  use  of  tone.  It  may  be  that 
they  disdained  an  attempt  at  absolute  imitation,  and 
were  satisfied  with  a  conventional  treatment  without 
break  or  shadow.  The  seated  scribe  of  the  Louvre  is 
coloured  a  uniform  red  of  equal  v^alue.  His  eyes,  as 
we  find  also  in  wood  figures,  are  formed  of  an  opaque 
white  quartz,  in  which  is  set  the  pupil  of  clear  rock 
crystal,  and  this  is  again  surrounded  by  eyebrows  and 
eyelashes  of  engraved  bronze.  For  wood,  the  work 
was  covered  with  fine  linen  closely  adhering  by  means 
of  some  colloid  to  every  portion  of  the  surface,  and 
upon  this  was  a  layer  of  thin  plaster  upon  which  colour 
was  applied  on  the  same  principle  as  in  the  case  of 
stone.  The  system  is,  in  fact,  identical  with  that  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  described  by  the 
monk  Theophilus  and  Cennino  Cennini  thousands  of 
years  later.  We  cannot  here  examine  at  length  a 
number  of  examples,   even   of  those  in   one  museum 

13 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

alone.  It  must  suffice  to  confine  our  attention  to  a  few 
which  are  typical.  A  fragment  of  a  figure,  as  far  as 
somewhat  below  the  waist — probably  of  a  slave — is  also 
in  the  Cairo  Museum.  The  head,  with  the  hair  or  a  wig 
carefully  curled,  is  no  less  powerfully  executed  than  that 
of  the  sheik.  It  is  ascribed  to  the  fifth  dynasty.  Eton 
College  possesses  a  fragment  of  a  figure  representing 
an  old  slave,  with  completely  bald  head,  of  the  time  of 
the  first  Theban  empire.  Finally,  in  the  museum  of 
the  Louvre  is  a  beautiful  statuette  of  the  priestess  Toui. 
It  is  of  a  dark  polished  wood,  of  a  fine  grain  :  of  acacia, 
sycamore,  or  of  the  Egyptian  locust-wood  perhaps,  for 
all  these  were  used,  together  with  ebony,  sometimes 
plain,  sometimes  coloured  and  gilt.  Of  charming  pro- 
portions, clothed  in  a  thin  transparent  robe,  she  wears 
a  magnificent  thickly  tressed  ceremonial  wig,  such  as  we 
find  so  commonly  in  much  earlier  times.  For  we  have 
arrived  now  at  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  two  thousand 
years  later  than  the  scribe,  and  still  there  is  no  differ- 
ence in  style  or  in  technique. 

It  is  not  only,  however,  great  sculpture  and  figures 
in  the  round  which  call  for  attention  amongst  these 
ancient  wood  sculptures.  There  are  also  numberless 
bas-reliefs  which  cannot  be  particularized.  We  are 
compelled  by  limits  of  space  to  confine  ourselves 
in  the  main  to  generalities.  But  there  is  also  some 
quite  small  work  which  is  often  so  fine  in  char- 
acter that  it  is  impossible  to  pass  it  over.  These 
are  the  carved  spoons  for  perfumes  and  the  little  toilet 
ornaments  and  utensils  which  are  to  be  found  in 
many  museums.  The  handles  of  the  spoons  are  carved 
with  human  figures  and  with  a  variety  of  motives  of 
the  most  fascinating  description.  We  find,  for  instance, 
in  the  Louvre,  the  graceful  nude  figure  of  a  young  girl 
swimming,  and  holding  a  waterfowl ;  another,  walking 
in  a  lotus-grove,  and  gathering  a  bud.  The  Liverpool 
Museum  possesses  a  delightful  figurine  which  appears 


FIGURE    SCULPTURE 

to  be  an  article  of  toilet  use,  to  contain  perhaps  kohl 
or  some  ointment.  It  is  of  a  type  which  is  not  uncom- 
mon also  in  alabaster  or  terra-cotta :  a  man,  bending 
under  the  weight  of  a  huge  vase  which  he  carries  on 
his  back,  one  arm  upraised  behind  him  to  support  it, 
the  other  hanging  down  or  resting  on  his  thigh  :  pre- 
cisely, in  fact,  as  we  see  a  hamnial  2X  his  task,  in  the 
streets  of  Cairo  to-day,  climbing  slowly  and  laboriously 
the  steep  ascent  to  the  citadel.  It  seems  to  be  a 
portrait  from  life  of  some  slave,  and  M.  Jean  Capart, 
who  describes  it  {Revue  archdoL,  4^"*^  serie  x.  372), 
points  out  that  the  form  of  the  handles  of  the  vase, 
confined  to  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  allows  us  to  be 
precise  as  to  date.  Other  examples  of  wood  sculpture 
of  all  kinds  present  themselves  in  profusion.  Amongst 
them  a  brief  reference  must  be  made  to  the  remark- 
able bas-reliefs  on  six  panels  of  wood,  found  by 
Mariette  in  a  tomb  of  the  third  dynasty  and  now 
in  the  Cairo  Museum.  They  are  portraits  of  the 
deceased,  one  Hosi,  and  admitting  the  conventional 
method  of  representation,  the  head  in  profile,  the  body, 
and  even  the  eye,  as  if  standing  full  face,  the  intuitive 
knowledge  of  art  and  the  great  cleverness  of  execu- 
tion are  surprising,  at  such  a  remote  epoch.  We  are 
not  now,  however,  endeavouring  to  follow  the  history 
of  sculpture  in  Egypt  even  in  this  one  branch  of  the 
art.  Should  we  do  so  we  should  find  the  two  currents 
already  alluded  to,  the  ideal  and  the  real,  strongly  illus- 
trated. We  should  discover  in  the  outline  pictures  on 
the  monuments  of  what  a  power  of  suggestion  these 
early  artists  were  capable.  As  an  example,  there  is  the 
painter  colouring  a  statue,  from  Thebes  (see  Cham- 
pollion,  plate  180).  It  is  the  art  of  leaving  out,  and  we 
must  admit  that  the  latest  achievements  of  the  French 
caricaturist  Sem,  or  our  own  Nicholson,  have  their 
prototypes  in  these  almost  prehistoric  times.  We  all 
see  things  of  this  kind  with  different  eyes,  and  may 

15 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

or  may  not  entirely  agree  with  the  observations  made 
by  Mr.  Flinders  Petrie  in  his  History  of  Egypt . 

But  they  are  very  much  to  the  point.  He  says : 
*  The  sculptor's  work  and  the  painter's  show  the  same 
sentiment — a  rivalry  of  nature.  They  did  not  make  a 
work  of  art  to  please  the  taste  as  such,  but  they  rivalled 
nature  as  closely  as  possible  :  the  form,  the  expression, 
the  colouring,  the  glittering  transparent  eye,  the  grave 
smile,  all  are  copied  as  if  to  make  an  artificial  man. 
The  painter  mixed  his  half-tints  and  his  delicate  shades 
and  dappled  over  the  animals  or  figured  the  feathers  of 
the  birds  in  a  manner  never  attempted  in  the  later  ages. 
The  embalmer  built  up  the  semblance  of  the  man  in 
resins  and  cloth  over  his  shrunken  corpse  to  make  him 
as  nearly  as  possible  what  he  was  when  alive.  In  each 
direction  man,  then,  set  himself  to  supplement,  to 
imitate,  to  rival,  or  to  exceed  the  works  of  nature.  Art, 
as  the  gratification  of  an  artificial  taste  and  standard, 
was  scarcely  in  existence,  but  the  simplicity,  the  vast- 
ness,  the  perfection  and  the  beauty  of  the  earliest  works, 
place  them  on  a  different  level  to  all  works  of  art  and 
man's  device  in  later  ages.  They  are  unique  in  their 
splendid  power,  which  no  self-conscious  civilization 
has  ever  rivalled,  or  can  hope  to  rival,  and  in  their 
enduring  greatness  they  may  last  till  all  the  feebler 
works  of  man  have  perished.' 

We  are  led,  then,  if  only  by  the  consideration  of 
the  few  examples  of  the  art  of  wood  sculpture  which 
limitations  of  space  permit  us  to  pass  in  review,  to 
questions  of  very  great  interest.  But  with  regard  to 
these  questions  no  certain  answer  is  forthcoming. 
Hypotheses  and  theories  are  not  wanting,  it  is  true, 
but  we  can  come  to  no  definite  conclusion.  It  would 
appear  that  at  a  time  so  remote  as  the  period  of  the 
fourth  dynasty — shall  we  say  four  thousand  years  before 
Christ  ? — the  civilization  of  Egypt  had  arrived  at  its 
highest  point,  and  that  perhaps  another  four  thousand 
i6 


REALISM    AND    ARCHAICISM 

years  had  passed  during  which  the  progress  of  this 
civilization  and  the  evolution  of  the  arts  had  been  going 
on.  It  would  appear,  also,  that  the  earliest  works  of 
art  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge  are,  as  Mariette 
has  said,  fine  in  themselves  and  no  less  fine  if  com- 
pared with  the  work  of  dynasties  which  are  supposed 
to  represent  the  most  flourishing  ages  of  Egypt.  The 
most  striking  feature  of  this  earliest  art  is  its  intense 
realism :  the  understanding  of  and  fidelity  to  nature 
even  when  conventionally  expressed.  It  would  appear, 
further,  that,  at  the  beginnings  of  the  fourth  dynasty, 
art  was  dependent  on  and  strongly  influenced  by 
religion,  its  ceremonies  and  hieratism.  As  in  the  west, 
thousands  of  years  later,  all  art  was  religious  art,  at 
least  in  an  extended  sense.  We  cannot,  however,  be 
certain  that  we  are  in  possession,  now,  of  the  finest  art 
of  all.  There  may  yet  be  in  store  for  us,  to  be  revealed 
by  further  discoveries,  still  greater  surprises.  So  far 
as  we  can  judge  at  the  present  time  the  earlier  the  art, 
the  greater  are  the  evidences  of  refinement,  whether 
from  instinct,  from  a  long  process  of  training  or  im- 
ported by  some  conquering  race,  we  know  not.  And, 
further,  that  somewhere  about  the  time  w^hen  documents 
become  abundant,  there  was  a  period  of  decadence 
forming  a  temporary  break. 

The  remains  of  ancient  Greek  or  Roman  art  in 
wood  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  so  few  that 
hardly  more  than  a  bare  reference  can  be  made  to 
them.  No  doubt  the  earliest  attempts  in  the  awaken- 
ing civilizations  of  these  peoples  were,  as  elsewhere, 
rude  resemblances  to  the  human  figure.  The  begin- 
nings of  art  of  this  kind  have  always  followed  a  like 
tendency :  something  more  in  the  nature  of  a  repre- 
sentative symbol  than  an  efibrt  to  reproduce  an  actual 
likeness.  Beauty,  for  the  pleasure  it  might  give,  was 
not  thought  of.  So  far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  the 
extreme  archaicism  of  the  early  Hellenic  religious 
B  17 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

sculptures  was  intentional.  The  national  museum  at 
Naples  possesses  a  wooden  image  of  Diana  which 
sums  up  the  retention  of  this  deliberately  intended 
feeling.  It  has  been  called  the  '  Diana  of  the  archaic 
smile.'  And,  amongst  other  rare  examples,  is  a  seated 
statuette,  in  wood,  of  a  goddess  with  a  child  on  her  lap, 
which  was  found  about  1872  in  a  tomb  at  Troussepoil, 
in  Vendee.  The  group,  nearly  three  feet  in  height,  in 
attitude  and  expression  and  draperies,  bears  a  remark- 
able resemblance  to  the  Madonna  statuettes  of  the 
Romanesque  period,  and  perhaps  explains  the  legends 
of  miraculous  images  found  from  time  to  time  (see 
Mdlauges  arch^ologiques,  1885).  In  this  connexion  a 
passing  reference  may  be  made  to  the  groups  of  Isis 
and  Horus,  of  which  an  interesting  example  in  ivory 
— so  like  wood  that  it  is  not  easy  to  say  whether  it  is 
so  or  not — is  in  the  Egyptian  gallery  of  the  British 
Museum. 


18 


CHAPTER    II 

WOOD  SCULPTURE  IN  THE  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES 

AND  LATER 

THE  perishable  nature  of  wood  has  already  been 
noticed.  If  we  may  add  to  this  its  small 
intrinsic  value,  the  want  of  consideration 
from  which  decorative  work  of  any  kind  must  suffer  as 
fashions  change,  and  the  recurring  vandalism  which 
seems  to  be  a  law  of  nature,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
our  information  concerning  the  art  of  sculpture  in 
wood,  even  of  our  own  early  era,  should  be  so  scanty. 
In  the  turbulent  times  of  which  we  know  so  little, 
excepting  that  men's  chief  occupations  were  strife  and 
tumult — in  the  Dark  Ages  as  we  call  them — the  goods 
of  the  Church  were  the  only  ones  respected,  and  even 
these  suffered.  Some  ivories  have  come  down  to  us  per- 
haps because  they  could  be  turned  neither  into  money 
nor  fuel.  But  wood — it  was  burnt  or  left  to  kick  about 
in  garrets  as  fashions  changed,  to  become  worm-eaten, 
rotten,  and  powdered  !  Even  in  the  most  recent  times, 
many  of  us  can  remember  how  the  to-day  so  highly 
prized  Chippendale  furniture  could  be  bought  for  a 
song,  and  was  considered  fit  only  for  the  nursery  or 
the  attic.  Such  a  thing  as  an  example  of  Norman 
furniture  could  not  be  found  in  England,  and  anything 
earlier  than  the  thirteenth  century  is  of  extreme 
rarity.  We  do  not  even  know  the  name  of  a  single 
English  furniture-maker  or  carver  of  Elizabeth's  time. 
In  England,  in  France,  in  the  Netherlands,  revolu- 
tionary and  reformation  troubles  caused  destructions  of 

19 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  most  sweeping  kind.  The  churches  were  the  only- 
museums  of  those  times,  and  they  themselves  were  the 
first  to  suffer  from  the  insensate  fury  of  iconoclasts. 

Thus  it  is  that  we  can  hardly  pretend  to  begin  any 
history  at  all  before,  at  earliest,  the  eleventh  century. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  preserved  in  various  collections, 
certain  archaic  rarities  with  traces  of  decoration,  such 
as  the  coffin  of  St.  Cuthbert  at  York,  the  reading-desk 
of  St.  Radegonde,^  in  the  convent  of  Sainte-Croix  at 
Poitiers,  some  gates  and  doorways  in  France  and 
Italy,  or  the  Romanesque  sculptures  of  the  Christiania 
Museum.  The  last  named  are  the  twelfth-century 
doorways  of  churches,  of  which  there  are  reproductions 
in  the  gallery  of  casts  at  Kensington,  and  there  are  also 
some  arm-chairs  and  other  furniture  with  a  decoration 
of  a  similar  character. 

The  reading-desk  of  Saint  Radegonde — if  we  are 
really  justified  in  assigning  to  it  such  an  early 
date  as  the  sixth  century  in  which  she  lived — is, 
of  course,  a  precious  monument,  on  account  of  its 
unique  position  as  an  example  of  wood-carving  of 
the  time.  With  regard  to  the  character  of  the  decor- 
ation, this  is  merely  an  application  of  themes  and 
sculptural  methods  derived  from  the  sarcophagi  of 
the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  in  Italy  and  southern 
Gaul,  and  may  have  been  executed  three  or  four 
centuries  later  (see  Mdl.  cTarchdol,  iii.  78).  The  vine- 
wood  doors  of  the  church  of  Santa  Sabina  in  Rome 
have  already  been  referred  to  in  my  '  Ivories '  of 
this  series  (p.  252).  They  are  usually  ascribed  to  the 
sixth  century,  but  the  whole  subject  involves  so  much 
that  is  debatable  and  connected  with  early  Christian 

^  St.  Radegonde,  wife  of  the  French  King  Clotaire.  She  founded  the 
abbey,  or  nunnery,  of  Poitiers,  which  she  called  the  Holy  Cross,  on  account  of 
a  relic  of  the  true  Cross  which  she  caused  to  be  preserved  there.  The  Normans 
in  England  had  a  great  devotion  to  her,  and  there  were  several  churches  and 
convents  under  her  dedication ;  notably  the  one  at  Cambridge,  which,  at  the 
reformation,  became  the  present  Jesus  College. 
20 


PLATE  I 


St   't    i^  ^  -^^     ^2?"' 


CHURCH    DOORWAY.     SCANDINAVIAN.     TWKl.HH   CENILRY 

CIIRI'-TIAS'A    MI   '■n  ^'.    SnkWAV 


SCANDINAVIAN    ART 

art  generally  that  I  shall  content  myself  with  their  bare 
mention.  It  is  extremely  doubtful  that  they  should  be 
given  so  early  a  date,  notwithstanding  their  close 
analogy  with  the  sarcophagus  style.  The  reader  may 
be  referred,  for  an  erudite  notice  concerning  them,  to 
the  paper  by  M.  Kondakov  in  the  Revue  Arclidologique, 
N.S.,  xxxiii.  360.  It  is  right  to  observe  that  such 
an  authority  as  Molinier  had  no  doubt  that  they  are 
Roman  work  of  the  early  sixth  century,  and  by  no 
means  due  to  sculptors  working  under  Greek  influences 
of  a  later  date. 

The  Scandinavian  doors  (Plate  i.)  allow  us  to 
form  a  very  good  idea  of  the  kind  of  decoration  in 
sculptured  wood  of  early  mediaeval  times.  We  find  in 
them  the  usual  interlaced  foliage  work,  with  which 
fantastic  figures  are  intermingled,  dear  to  the  northern 
races  :  a  style  which  persisted  so  long  that  though  we 
may  have  grounds  for  an  attribution  to  the  twelfth 
century  they  may  well  be  later.  A  close  examination 
of  the  subjects  drawn  from  old  Norse  mythology — 
perhaps  from  the  Nibelungen — would  be  most  attrac- 
tive. Amongst  them  we  seem  to  have,  for  example, 
Siegfried  blowing  the  furnace,  forging  his  arms,  fighting 
the  dragon,  and  so  on.  The  execution  is  admirable, 
and  has  the  further  interest  that  the  style  is  inspired 
or  borrowed  from  English  or  Celtic  sources  of  the 
eleventh  or  twelfth  century.  We  must  remember  also 
that  Scandinavia  was  not  evangelized  until  the  eleventh 
century,  no  long  time  before  the  date  assigned  to  these 
church  doors.  However  this  may  be,  they  illustrate 
the  usual  type  of  sculpture  in  wood  of  the  Carlovingian 
empire  in  the  Romanesque  period.  There  is  nothing 
original  or  peculiar  to  Scandinavia.  The  system  is 
borrowed  from  the  prevailing  fondness  elsewhere  for 
convoluted  foliage  ornament  twisted  and  knotted  in 
elegant  curved  lines  symmetrically  arranged  and  inter- 
mingled  with    mythological    figures   and   grotesques : 

21 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

conventional,  yet  in  a  certain  way  realistic.  We  need 
not  here  pursue  its  more  remote  oriental  origin.  With 
regard  to  design  and  technique,  a  similar  fashion  is  to 
be  found  on  other  early  doors,  for  example  those  of  the 
eleventh  century  of  the  cathedral  at  Puy.  We  have 
here  again,  in  the  scenes  of  the  life  of  our  Lord,  the 
same  system  of  deeply  cut  subjects  in  a  style  resem- 
bling champlevd  enamels,  the  surfaces  quite  flat  without 
any  relief  whatever,  and  the  added  colour,  of  which 
there  are  traces,  would  make  the  resemblance  still 
closer.  Other  examples  of  the  kind  might  be  given, 
and  if  we  were  to  follow  the  subject  still  more  closely 
we  should  find  that  this  kind  of  dug-out  decoration  in 
wood — in  chests  for  example — continued  until  quite 
late  times.  We  shall  take  note,  later  on,  of  the  coffer 
in  the  Cluny  Museum  of  late  thirteenth  or  early  four- 
teenth century  work,  but  it  will  be  an  evidence  of  an 
almost  sudden  awakening  and  of  the  beginning  of 
times  when  an  entirely  different  character  of  ornament 
will  afford  examples  in  profusion.  In  France  the 
earliest  known  piece  of  furniture  is  the  armoire  of  the 
church  of  Obazine  (Correze).  It  may  possibly  be 
referred  to  the  twelfth  century,  but  it  is  almost  entirely 
unornamented.  Our  principal  concern  will  be  with  the 
madonna  and  crucifix  figures.  Of  these  some  noble 
specimens  yield  in  no  way,  in  merit  and  interest,  to 
those  in  other  materials  of  pre-Gothic  times.  The  con- 
dition of  Europe,  and  indeed  of  what  constituted  the 
civilized  world  at  the  time  now  occupying  our  atten- 
tion, offered  but  little  opportunity  for  the  cultivation  of 
the  arts.  It  had  hardly  recovered  from  the  terrible 
anarchy  produced  by  the  invasion  of  barbarian  hordes 
in  the  eighth  century  which  had  covered  it  with  ruins. 
Men's  attention  was  wholly  absorbed  by  wars  between 
nations  and  disputes  amongst  powerful  chieftains. 
They  had  no  time  to  trouble  about  the  comforts  and 
luxuries  of  life.     Those  whose  minds  turned  to  religious 

22 


TWELFTH    CENTURY 

subjects  were  resigned  to  the  idea  that  the  time  for 
providing  for  future  generations  was  past,  and  that  the 
year  looo  was  an  ominous  date,  destined  to  see  the  end 
of  all  things.  It  is,  perhaps,  more  than  a  remarkable 
coincidence  that  this  period  of  anxiety  should  be 
succeeded  by  one  of  greater  tranquillity,  and  that  the 
arts  of  peace  should,  as  it  were,  immediately  enter  upon 
an  era  of  activity.  The  very  year  looo  gave  the 
signal  for  an  enthusiasm  in  church-building.  But 
although  in  our  own  country  the  Norman  invasion, 
later  on,  brought  with  it  the  genius  and  feeling  for  art 
of  another  race,  we  were  still  far  behind  in  that  of 
architecture  and  sculpture :  in  all  the  arts,  indeed, 
except  those  which  were  practised  in  the  seclusion  of 
the  monasteries,  or  in  metallurgy,  for  which  we  had 
the  advantage  of  possessing  rich  stores  of  the  necessary 
materials.  The  twelfth  century  continued  the  advance, 
and  the  coming  of  pointed  architecture,  which  was 
everywhere  adopted,  spurred  on  the  cultivation  of  all 
the  arts,  wood  sculpture  no  less  than  the  others.  If, 
then,  we  are  forced  to  begin  our  history  at  compara- 
tively so  late  a  date  as  the  eleventh  century,  it  coincides 
with  a  time  when  every  industry  was  beginning  to 
awaken  from  the  lethargy  under  which  it  had  so  long 
stagnated.  In  the  working  and  ornamentation  of 
wood  the  imagination  of  the  artist  was  no  longer 
limited  to  always  the  same  interlaced  patterns  mingled 
with  fabulous  animals,  the  human  figure  characterized 
with  always  the  same  stiffness,  unnatural  attitudes,  and 
monotonous  gravity  of  expression.  As  the  twelfth 
century  progresses,  painters  and  sculptors  gradually 
begin  to  abandon  the  hieratic  methods  under  which 
they  had  hitherto  worked.  It  is  almost  an  art  nouveau. 
Where,  in  the  older  system,  there  was  neither  undiluted 
realism  nor  idealism,  but  only  the  restrictions  of  a 
traditional  convention,  there  begins  to  be  an  approach 
to    an    understanding  of  nature.       Draperies   are   no 

23 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

longer  confined  to  a  uniform  system  of  long,  straight, 
and  narrow  folds,  but  the  sacred  personages  begin 
to  wear  an  approximation  at  least  to  the  costume 
of  the  period  wdiich  the  artist  had  daily  before  his 
eyes — this,  of  course,  except  in  the  case  of  the  most 
sacred  of  all.  We  are  nearing  the  time  of  an  absolute 
revolution  in  architecture,  when  the  Abbot  Suger 
builds  his  church  of  Saint  Denis,  when  Chartres  and 
Reims  uprear  their  famous  facades,  and  when  England 
is  in  no  ways  behind  other  countries  in  enthusiasm  and 
accomplishment.  And  when  we  remember  that  the 
great  edifices  had  each  and  all  to  be  filled  with  sculp- 
ture in  wood  as  well  as  in  stone,  and  that  the  controller 
of  the  whole  was  the  master  builder — or  architect  as  we 
should  call  him  now — it  will  be  seen  that  these  general 
references  are  not  without  importance  in  relation  to 
our  particular  subject.  The  more  so  because  the  func- 
tions of  the  master  builder  were  not  limited  to  those 
of  the  modern  architect.  He  could  and  did  carve 
a  statue  or  the  capital  of  a  pillar  as  well  as  plan  and 
measure  and  decide  upon  curves  and  angles,  and 
whatever  may  have  been  the  freedom  permitted  to 
individual  sculptors,  their  part  was  entirely  subordinate 
to  his  conception  of  the  whole  work.  The  importance 
of  this  consideration  cannot  be  too  much  insisted  upon. 
We  are,  however,  still  confronted  with  a  paucity 
of  examples  in  wood  sculpture  until  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  But  before  we  enter  into  the 
succeeding  one,  when  there  will  be  much  less  reason 
to  complain,  there  are  a  certain  number  of  statuettes, 
especially  of  the  Virgin  and  Child  and  of  crucifix 
figures,  which  are  highly  instructive.  Throughout 
the  fourteenth  century  wood-carving  follows  the  same 
lines  as  the  stone  sculpture  of  the  cathedrals.  The  vari- 
ous departments  of  art  are  not  specialized,  the  trained 
workman  is  not  confined  to  any  particular  branch. 
Many  are  at  once  architects,  painters,  sculptors,  image- 
24 


MEDI.^VAL 

makers,  huchers,  or,  as  we  should  say,  cabinet-makers. 
And  this  condition  of  affairs  continues  to  at  least  mid- 
sixteenth  century.  Architecture  and  the  architectural 
completeness  governed  everything.  Under  the  master 
builder,  retables,  stalls,  figures,  and  even  such  minor 
accessories  as  thuribles  and  other  sanctuary  requisites, 
were  simply  motives  for  decoration  in  accordance  with 
the  general  plan.  All  decorative  work  bore  an  archi- 
tectural aspect.  Even  in  furniture,  chairs,  tables  and 
benches,  bedsteads  and  chests,  were  panelled  with 
window  tracery,  adorned  with  little  buttresses  and  pin- 
nacles, and,  between  the  panels,  with  carved  niches  and 
canopies  :  surmounted  also,  in  the  case  of  ceremonial 
seats,  or  even  of  rich  domestic  furniture,  with  an 
elaborately-carved  dais.  There  was  an  overmastering 
tendency  to  lavish  ornament  everywhere,  not  only 
simply  decorative  ornament,  but  also  pictorial  and 
didactic.  There  was  a  propensity  in  the  choirs  of 
cathedrals,  and  even  of  parish  churches,  to  an  over-rich 
display,  which  took  the  place  of  the  refined  simplicity 
which  had  characterized  the  previous  age.  We  shall 
see  this  at  its  culmination  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  when  the  aim  seemed  to  be  to  employ  all  the 
resources  of  the  wood-carver's  skill  in  the  production  of 
a  veritable  encyclopaedia  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  and 
of  religion,  together  with  an  epitome  of  the  domestic 
life,  manners,  and  customs  of  the  time.  This  meant, 
indeed,  the  whole  science  of  theology,  for  theology 
embraced  all  knowledge,  and  the  method  of  imparting 
it  to  the  illiterate  people  was  by  means  of  these  great 
illustrated  books  which  every  one  could  read.  The 
language  was  the  language  of  symbolism,  and  the 
imagery  was  drawn  from  every  conceivable  source, 
both  sacred  and  profane ;  from  the  romances  of 
chivalry  or  the  mystical  bestiaries  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  The  transformation  effected  by  the  end  of 
the  fourteenth  century  was  complete,  but  we  shall  not 

25 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

attempt  to  trace  it  to  all  its  sources  and  in  every  land. 
Italy  had  not  yet  begun  to  exercise  the  special  influence 
which,  a  century  later,  was  to  become  so  powerful  and 
far-reaching  in  the  creation  of  an  entirely  new  system. 
It  is  to  Flanders  that  our  attention  will  be  drawn 
over  and  over  again  in  succeeding  chapters.  It  is  true 
that  the  courts  of  Philip  vi.,  of  John  ii.,  or  of  Charles  v. 
were  centres  of  all  the  arts,  but  the  chief  impulse  was 
given  by  such  masters  as  Claus  Sluter,  or  Andr6 
Beauneveu,  and  by  such  work  as  i\iQ  putts  de  Moise  at 
Dijon.  The  artistic  relations  between  the  Netherlands 
and  the  Courts  of  Philip  the  Bold  and  of  Philip  the 
Good,  and  the  fusion  later  on  with  the  house  of 
Austria,  have  an  important  relation  with  our  subject. 
Indeed,  during  the  three  centuries  or  so  with  which  we 
shall  be  more  particularly  interested,  we  shall  meet  the 
Fleming  at  every  turn.  We  shall  not  be  able  to 
neglect  him  even  in  his  painting.  The  influence  of 
painting  upon  sculpture  may  be  indirect,  and  it  cannot 
be  said  that  a  school  of  the  one  creates  a  school  of  the 
other,  yet  it  may  act  very  powerfully  upon  it,  as  will 
presently  be  insisted  upon.  We  shall  find,  then,  the 
Fleming  almost  cosmopolitan  in  his  character.  By 
nature  homely,  and  a  lover  of  his  own  chimney-corner, 
he  is  industrious,  and  as  a  bread-winner  has  no  hesita- 
tion in  expatriating  himself,  and  even  in  attaching  him- 
self to  another  nationality.  And  so  we  find  him  now 
Burgundian,  now  a  Frenchman,  now  German,  now  so 
far  a  Spaniard  that  we  have  to  deduce  his  origin  by  his 
Flemish  name  disguised  in  Spanish  form.  In  our  own 
country  we  owe  to  him  the  Angel  choir  of  Lincoln,  one 
amongst  many  evidences  of  the  employment  by  us  of 
Flemish  artists  during  at  least  five  centuries  of  the 
greatest  activity  in  the  arts  in  England.  The  produc- 
tions of  the  wood-carver's  skill  of  Brussels  or  of 
Antwerp  enjoyed  a  world-wide  reputation,  and  were 
exported  to  every  other  country.  Had  it  not  been  for 
26 


MEDIEVAL 

the  destructions  at  the  Reformation  our  churches  would 
probably  even  now  abound  in  triptychs  and  retables 
and  roods  from  these  celebrated  workshops.  One  of 
the  difficulties  in  our  study  of  the  evolution  of  the  art 
of  wood-carv^ing  will  be  to  recognize  that  as  centuries 
progress  changes  are  rarely  sudden.  One  style  sup- 
plants another  almost  imperceptibly.  Innovations 
would  not  be  accepted  at  once,  and  time  would  have 
been  required  before  the  newer  system  triumphed. 
Nor  would  changes  have  occurred  simultaneously  in 
every  district :  even  in  the  same  town  the  old  fashion 
would  have  kept  its  admirers.  Therefore  it  is  that 
style  is  not  always  evidence  of  date.  It  would  not  be 
easy  to  make  a  just  comparison  between  the  refinement 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  progress  accomplished  in 
the  fourteenth,  and  the  new  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  in 
the  fifteenth.  There  was  in  fact,  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  a  pause  which  was  marked,  a  halt  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  spring  forward  which  was  to  follow.  Dur- 
ing that  interval  there  was  an  indulgence  in  a  kind  of 
extravagance.  The  art  was  less  refined,  less  spiritually 
inspired,  with  more  dexterity,  perhaps,  than  perfection 
in  execution.  A  new  era  had  opened  in  the  gradual 
emancipation  from  religious  domination.  Craftsmen 
were  formed  into  corporations,  and  the  hieratic  rule  of 
the  monastery  lost  its  autocratic  power.  So  long  as 
the  arts  proceeded  along  lines  rigidly  marked  out  by 
dogma  and  tradition,  the  free  study  of  nature  was  kept 
in  check.  But  the  increase  of  luxury  made  its  wants 
felt  in  another  direction.  The  laity  now  began  to  have 
a  say  in  the  matter.  And  so  there  came  about  a  freer 
system  which  required  a  different  organization  of 
labour.  Huchers  and  joiners  separated  from  the  ordi- 
nary working  carpenter,  and  those  with  natural  apti- 
tudes for  that  line  began  to  study  ornament  for  its  own 
sake.  The  demands  on  their  talent  were  no  longer 
exclusively  confined  to  the  requirements  of  the  altar, 

27 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

although  even  for  the  decoration  of  the  sumptuous 
furniture  of  the  rich  man's  house  they  knew  no  other 
theme  than  that  inspired  by  religion.  The  great  artists 
of  this  period  of  awakening  were  pioneers,  the  results 
of  whose  efforts  on  emancipation  soon  became  manifest 
in  every  land.  An  understanding  of  art  thus  catered 
for  seems  to  have  been  innate,  in  those  days,  in  the 
meanest  of  people.  What  the  public  was  capable  of 
appreciating  found  an  ever  ready  supply.  Art  was 
vulgarized  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term.  It  became  a 
necessity  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  smallest  hamlet.  If 
it  was  to  be  found  at  its  highest  amongst  those  who 
worked  in  the  great  capitals,  or  for  princely  mansions, 
the  village  carpenter,  in  his  untrained  way,  possessed 
an  unconscious  perception  of  its  canons,  and  he  was 
successful  in  applying  them  because  he  could  both 
design  and  execute.  Yet  still,  and  for  two  centuries 
longer,  the  great  abbeys  were  the  source  from  which 
everything  proceeded.  They  were  the  inspirers  and 
the  directing  force.  As  the  Rule  of  the  great  Bene- 
dictine order  had  provided,  so  it  was  still.  Every 
monk  was  not  obliged  to  be  an  artist,  but  every 
monastery  was  a  hive  of  artistic  industry,  a  workshop 
of  trained  architects,  illuminators,  calligraphists,  sculp- 
tors and  carvers  in  stone  and  wood,  founders  and 
chasers,  and  enamellers,  in  iron  and  bronze  and  in  the 
precious  metals.  They  were  the  instructors  and  they 
set  the  tune,  even  if  their  pupils  were  less  dependent 
upon  them  than  formerly.  Our  thoughts  in  this 
direction  naturally  turn  to  our  special  subject,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  avoid  a  certain  amount  of  generalization 
which  may  not  in  every  case  be  strictly  accurate.  We 
find  in  wood  sculpture,  as  in  the  minor  arts  as  a  rule, 
little  evidence  of  originality  of  conception.  The  artist's 
themes  were  found  for  him,  and  their  arrangement 
followed  the  traditionary  methods.  They  had  the 
work  of  the  masters  of  sculpture  in  stone  to  inspire 
28 


MEDIEVAL 

them,  and  their  task  was  to  transpose  into  the  key  of 
wood  that  which  had  originally  been  phrased  to  suit 
the  needs  and  qualities  of  another  medium  of  expres- 
sion. Nor  can  it  be  said  that  they  were  always 
successful,  and  this,  indeed,  because  their  art  was  not 
specialized.  In  the  fifteenth  century  we  arrive  at  a 
more  intelligent  effort  to  understand  the  human  form, 
and  to  follow  its  study :  a  study  which  monastic  senti- 
ment had  so  long  barred  and  proscribed.  The  great 
effect  which  resulted  was  in  the  treatment  of  draperies. 
To  this  subject  we  shall  have  more  than  once  again  to 
turn  our  attention.  Early  Christian  and  early  medi- 
aeval art  disliked  and  entirely  neglected  the  body  as  a 
form  of  beauty.  The  head  alone  received  attention, 
the  use  of  drapery  was  to  conceal  the  human  figure. 
It  fell  in  long  straight  folds  and  hid  even  the  feet. 
In  Italy,  up  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  the 
sculptural  arts  had  fallen  into  complete  decadence,  and 
even  in  the  early  days  of  the  thirteenth  she  was  still  in 
arrear  of  other  nations.  But  a  movement  was  prepar- 
ing which  was  not  to  be  without  its  effect  upon  the 
particular  subject  with  which  we  are  concerned.  We 
shall  consider  presently,  even  if  it  must  be  in  a  some- 
what restricted  manner,  sculpture  in  wood  of  the  great 
schools  of  the  trecento  and  quattrocento  of  Pisa,  of 
Florence,  and  of  Siena,  and  we  shall  be  able  to  include 
amongst  those  who  practised  the  craft  the  names  of  the 
greatest  masters  of  sculpture  of  those  glorious  times. 
Again,  we  shall  find  that  there  was  no  exclusiveness, 
and  that  a  close  connexion  existed  between  the  painter 
and  sculptor  and  worker  in  the  precious  metals. 

The  early  history  of  sculpture  in  France  is  vague, 
and  we  have  little  to  show  in  wood.  The  Gaulish  pro- 
vinces, after  the  Roman  conquest,  suffered,  as  elsewhere 
in  Europe,  from  the  invasions  and  oppressions  of  the 
conquerors,  and  little  chance  was  left  for  the  peaceful 
arts.     Their  refuge  was  in,  or  in  the  neighbourhood  of, 

29 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  great  monasteries,  and  there,  no  doubt,  were  estab- 
lished the  only  schools  for  the  practice  of  wood  and 
ivory  carving.  Later  on  we  shall  find  examples  in 
profusion  to  show  that  the  wood  sculptors  of  France 
were  as  distinguished  as  those  in  other  branches. 
Paris  became  the  centre,  and,  at  least  up  to  the 
fifteenth  century,  was  the  instructor  in  the  arts  of  the 
whole  of  Europe.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  ivories,  we 
have  little  precise  information  and  no  names.  Or  if, 
as  is  probable,  we  may  take  it  that  the  ivory  carvers 
worked  also  in  wood,  it  is  to  them  that  we  must  go  to 
include  a  Jean  le  Scelleur,  who  in  13 15  was  employed 
for  Philip  the  Long,  a  Jean  le  Brailleur,  the  ivory 
carver  of  Charles  v.,  a  Jehan  de  Couilly,  or  a  Jean  de 
Marville  at  the  Court  of  Burgundy.  But  that  court 
will  supply  us  with  some  names  of  notable  carvers  of 
Flemish  origin  of  very  great  importance.  Other  royal 
inventories  show  also  the  esteem  in  which  the  wood- 
carver's  art  was  held  ;  for  instance,  in  that  of  Charles  v. 
there  is  mention  of  '  tableaux  istoriez,  crucefilz,  ymages 
de  bois,  un  de  quatre  pieces  que  Girard  d'Orldans  fist,' 
and  in  the  inventory  of  Philippe  le  Bon  wood  figures 
are  entered  under  'ymages  d'or  et  d'argent.' 

In  Germany  we  shall  be  mostly  concerned  with  the 
wood-carving  of  quite  late  mediaeval  times,  at  a  period 
of  transition  when  the  tide  of  the  Renaissance  was  flow- 
ing fast  and  rapidly  changing  the  condition  of  things 
which  had  so  long  continued.  We  shall  find  two  dis- 
tinct regions,  that  of  the  north  where  vast  forests  of 
oak  prevailed,  and  that  of  the  south  where  softer  and 
more  resinous  woods  were  also  used.  It  is  to  the  work 
of  the  southern  masters,  to  the  schools  of  Wiirtemberg, 
of  Wiirzburg,  of  Rothenburg  or  Ntirnberg,  and  of 
Suabia  generally,  bordering  on  Italy  and  Switzerland, 
that  attention  will  be  chiefly  directed. 

In  Spain,  wood-carving,  always  in  a  flourishing 
condition  in  the  early  Middle  Ages,  continued  to  be 

30 


VARIETIES    USED 

none  the  less  so  in  later  Gothic  times  and  through- 
out the  period  of  the  Renaissance.  If,  at  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century  and  beginning  of  the  sixteenth, 
the  prevailing  fashion  as  exemplified  in  the  choir 
stalls  of  that  period  is  frankly  French,  and  if  the 
designers  and  carvers  of  so  many  magnificent  choirs 
and  retables  have  French,  and,  especially,  Flemish 
names,  they  worked  in  conjunction  with  Spanish 
artists.  But  the  art  they  display  is  a  borrowed  and  not 
a  national  one,  and  so  it  must  be  considered.  Yet  it  is 
Spanish. 

In  England  we  are  met  by  even  a  greater  penury  of 
existing  examples  than  elsewhere,  and  although  in 
Gothic  times  the  fabrics  of  our  great  cathedrals,  abbeys, 
and  parish  churches  attest  that  we  possessed  a  national 
art  in  no  way  inferior  to  other  countries — in  some 
styles  taking  the  lead — yet  the  destructions  of  the 
reformers  and  Puritans  have  left  us  in  wood  sculpture 
almost  nothing.  Practically,  we  can  show  only  the 
choirs  and  choir  stalls,  chancel  screens  and  bench  ends, 
and  the  splendid  roof-work,  so  peculiarly  English. 
Happily,  these  still  exist  in  not  inconsiderable  numbers. 

Without  the  aid  of  wood  few  arts  would  be  possible, 
and  in  itself  its  peculiar  qualities  make  it  applicable  to 
every  form  of  sculptural  decoration.  The  sole  fault 
with  which  we  can  reproach  it  is  the  liability  to  decay. 
No  material  is  more  amenable  to  the  chisel  or  graver. 
The  varieties  are  very  numerous,  and  its  own  natural 
colours  and  capability  of  high  polish  demand,  of 
necessity,  nothing  additional.  It  is  no  part  of  the  plan 
of  this  book  to  enter  generally  into  the  natural  history 
of  the  various  kinds  of  wood,  but  a  few  brief 
remarks  concerning  those  which  have  been  generally 
used  in  decorative  sculpture  will  not  be  out  of  place. 
Oak,  of  course,  has  ever  been  the  most  popular, 
especially  amongst  ourselves  in  mediaeval  times.  In 
the  German  schools,  also,  of  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 

31 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

centur}' — at  Calcar,  Xanten,  and  other  great  centres  of 
the  northern  division,  oak  was  almost  exclusively 
used.  In  France  the  northern  schools  remained 
faithful  to  it  long  after  some  softer  woods  were 
employed  in  more  southern  regions.  Indeed,  one  may 
say,  generally,  that  oak  is  an  infallible  sign  of  northern 
workmanship,  walnut  of  the  provinces  south  of  Bur- 
gundy. But  there  is  no  rule  without  exceptions,  and 
in  later  times,  in  the  schools  of  Philibert  de  I'Orme, 
Pierre  Lescot,  Jean  Goujon,  Germain  Pilon  or  Ducer- 
ceau,  in  the  ile  de  France,  and  in  the  provinces 
bordering  on  the  Loire,  walnut  was  exclusively  used. 
So  also  with  regard  to  the  Lyonese  schools  in 
Burgundy,  Auvergne,  and  Dauphind,  oak  furniture 
is  to  be  found.  But  walnut  was  certainly  the  fashion- 
able wood  of  the  Renaissance,  of  the  times  of 
Louis  XII.  and  Francis  i.  Nearly  all  the  great  Bur- 
gundian  pieces  of  this  period  are  in  walnut.  Again,  in 
Italy,  the  same  wood  with  its  beautiful  grain  and  rich 
colour  and  hard  close  texture,  besides  possessing  a 
variety  peculiar  to  the  country,  and  in  great  profusion, 
was  the  favourite  for  her  magnificent  choir  stalls.  Fig- 
tree  was  occasionally  used  in  Italy,  and  corkwood,  for 
its  lightness.  There  are,  for  instance,  a  life-sized 
statue  of  the  flagellation  in  the  church  of  S.  Giovanni 
al  Monte,  Bologna,  and  a  St.  Sebastian  in  the  Salting 
collection  at  South  Kensington  of  the  first-named  wood, 
and  crucifix  figures  to  which  reference  is  made  later 
on,  in  corkwood.  Walnut,  indeed,  has  always  been  a 
favourite,  especially  in  southern  countries.  The 
Spanish  wood-carver  was  naturally  partial  to  it,  for  it 
has  always  been  common  in  his  country,  and  oak  on 
the  contrary  scarce  and  necessary  to  be  imported.  The 
early  Spanish  carvers,  even  long  after  the  Moors  had 
been  driven  out,  used  the  wood  of  the  cedar,  cypress, 
pine,  and  other  resinous  varieties  ;  the  pine  of  Cuen^a 
being  particularly  esteemed. 
32 


VARIETIES    USED 

The  immense  pine  forests  of  Germany  will,  of  course, 
prepare  us  to  find  this  wood  largely  employed,  and 
we  shall  come  across  some  remarkable  panels  in  the 
museum  at  Kensington  of  the  south  Bavarian  school 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  From  the  nature  of  the  grain 
and  arrangement  of  the  fibres  it  was  best  adapted  for 
flat  or  not  very  high  relief ;  for  coffers  and  panels 
rather  than  statues  and  statuettes.  We  may  recall 
also  the  Scandinavian  doors  previously  described. 

Boxwood  has  peculiar  qualities  which  distinguish 
it  from  almost  every  other  wood.  Unfortunately 
it  is  not  to  be  obtained  in  pieces  of  any  but  compara- 
tively small  dimensions.  Notwithstanding  this,  the 
examples  of  figure  work,  in  boxwood,  to  which  we  shall 
come  presently,  are  masterpieces  which  stand  in  a  dis- 
tinct category,  and  from  this  point  of  view  are  not  to  be 
surpassed  amongst  the  whole  range  of  sculpture  which 
forms  our  subject.  Some,  indeed,  will  hold  their  own 
in  comparison  with  the  statuettes  of  bronze  and  other 
figure  work  of  the  periods  to  which  they  belong. 

Beech,  elm,  yew,  and  chestnut — if  not  so  commonly 
selected — might  all  be  illustrated  by  examples. 
Mahogany  was  not  known  in  mediaeval  times,  nor  did 
the  sculptor  appear  to  have  any  leaning  towards  the 
woods  with  ornamental  grains  such  as  maple  or  satin- 
wood.  For  marquetry  these,  of  course,  would  appeal, 
but  the  prevailing  fashion  of  adding  colour  to  all 
sculpture  in  whatever  material,  to  which  attention  will 
be  drawn  in  a  succeeding  chapter,  would  have  been 
one  reason,  amongst  others,  for  neglect.  Sycamore  and 
acacia,  tamarisk,  cedar,  rosewood,  and,  for  inlay,  sandal- 
wood were  favourite  woods  of  the  sculptor  in  ancient 
Egypt,  and,  in  the  days  of  the  highest  civilization  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  we  learn  from  such  writers  as 
Pausanias  the  lavish  use  of  ebony,  cypress,  cedar,  oak, 
sycamore,  yew,  willow,  ash,  beech,  maple,  hornbeam, 
plane,  mulberry,  lemon,  palm,  holly,  poplar,  walnut,  and 

c  33 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

pear.  But,  indeed,  every  existing  wood  has  doubtless 
served  the  purpose  more  or  less  at  one  time  than 
another.  Lime  is  a  soft  wood,  pliable  to  the  tool,  not 
given  to  splintering,  and  taking  a  stain  well,  that  we 
shall  meet  very  frequently  indeed  in  the  work  of  the 
Franconian  sculptors  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries :  in  the  figure  work  of  Veit  Stoss  and 
Riemenschneider  and  their  contemporaries.  In  Eng- 
land we  find  it  very  commonly  used  for  the  imitative 
festoons  of  garlands,  fruit,  and  bird-life  of  Grinling 
Gibbons  and  his  school.  The  white  description  which 
they  selected  is,  however,  peculiarly  subject  to  the 
attacks  of  insects,  and  the  gum  or  glaze  with  which 
the  finished  work  was  covered  preventing  their  escape, 
the  result  was  that  in  numerous  cases  the  whole  interior 
was  eaten  away,  leaving  mere  shells  or  skeletons. 
Pearwood  also  was  a  favourite  with  the  sixteenth- 
century  statuette  carvers.  It  is  light,  close  grained, 
moderately  hard,  and  not  given  to  warp  or  split. 
Harrison,  in  his  description  of  English  woods  and 
marshes  in  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  written  in  1577, 
speaks  of  houses  formerly  built  of  sallow,  willow, 
plum,  hardbeam,  and  elm,  in  which  men  were  content 
to  dwell,  and  that  '  oak  was  in  manner  dedicated  wholly 
unto  churches,  religious  houses,  princes'  palaces,  noble- 
men's lodgings,  and  navigation  :  but  now  all  these  are 
rejected,  and  nothing  but  oak  any  whit  regarded.' 
Bois  dislande  is  frequently  mentioned  in  old  French 
and  Flemish  contracts.  According  to  the  statutes  of 
the  corporation  of  charpentiers  Jiiichiers  of  Paris  in 
1382,  this  and  walnut,  ebony,  pear,  elm,  maple,  guelder, 
and  some  others  not  easy  to  identify,  were  much  used. 
Regulations  are  very  precise,  showing  the  esteem  in 
which  the  craft  was  held,  and  how  fine  work  was  only 
to  be  practised  by  masters.  Care  was  taken  that  the 
wood  should  be  of  the  finest  quality,  thoroughly 
seasoned,   without    knots   or   shakes,   and    that   green 

34 


PRESERVATIOxN    FROM    DECAY 

ebony  should  not  be  used  instead  of  black,  nor  pear, 
nor  other  wood,  instead.  Yet  of  this  hard  lasting 
ebony  I  do  not  know  that  a  single  mediaeval  example 
could  be  found.  The  statutes  of  corporations  are  all 
of  the  same  character,  lengthy  and  minute  in  detail, 
and  the  same  evidence  of  care  in  selection  of  material 
and  quality  of  the  work  will  be  found  in  such  contracts 
as  that  for  a  rood-loft  for  a  remote  Cornish  parish  which 
elsewhere  is  here  quoted. 

The  question  of  the  preservation  of  wood-carvings 
from  decay  is  an  important  and  interesting  one.  The 
maladies  to  which  the  different  kinds  are  liable  vary, 
of  course,  according  to  the  several  species  :  so  also  do 
the  attacks  of  the  enemies  to  which  they  are  subject. 
Chestnut  was  disliked  and  condemned  by  Wren,  who 
considered  that  it  became  rotten  sooner  than  oak. 
Yet  the  famous  roof  of  Westminster  Hall  is  made  of 
it.  The  question  is  one  of  technical  interest.  It  will 
suffice  to  mention  that  in  1855  a  Royal  Commission 
was  appointed  to  consider  it.  The  evidence  and  report 
may  be  consulted  with  profit. 

It  must  be  admitted,  of  course,  that  we  have 
few  remains  of  wood  sculpture  to  be  compared  with 
the  figures  of  Chartres,  of  Reims,  or  of  Amiens,  but  it 
may  be  remembered  also  that  until  full  sixteenth 
century,  when  the  classical  turn  in  taste  was  becoming 
overmastering,  this  art  exercised  more  general  interest 
than  any  other.  It  was  the  medium  above  all  others 
of  appealing  to  the  popular  imagination  and,  after  all, 
popular  taste  in  those  days  represented  the  nation  to  a 
greater  extent,  in  point  of  numbers  and  concentration 
of  classes,  than  it  does  now.  Learning  and  an 
appreciation  of  the  refinement  which  characterized 
the  imagery  of  the  thirteenth  century  would  have  been 
confined  to  the  few.  This  ultra-refinement  was,  no 
doubt,  for  the  court  and  the  higher  clergy.  But  the 
mass  of  the  people  had  provided  for  them  a  system  of 

35 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

education  which,  whether  it  approached  near  to  or  fell 
far  short  of  the  greater  sculpture  in  stone,  undoubtedly 
was  the  means  of  keeping  up  a  high  standard  of  taste 
amongst  them.  What  still  remains  for  our  admiration 
is  evidence,  when  we  consider  the  facilities  it  offers  for 
decay  and  destruction,  that  at  one  time  the  abundance 
must  have  been  almost  incredible.  With  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  multitude  of  images  in  this  material 
coincided — account  for  it  as  we  may — the  decline  in 
general  taste.  From  the  other  side  of  the  mountains 
came  the  invasion  of  classical  ideas  which  demanded 
marble  as  the  great  medium  of  plastic  expression. 
Great,  no  doubt,  was  this  art,  unsurpassed  in  its  appeal 
to  the  intellect,  but  it  was  caviare  to  the  general.  Wood 
and  even  stone  were  abandoned :  wood  was  good 
enough  for  the  cabinet-maker,  and  to  him  it  was 
relegated.  With  it  died  also  the  age  of  colour  in 
sculpture. 

Besides  the  question  of  durability,  the  paucity  of 
early  examples  of  wood  sculpture  may  be  accounted  for 
by  causes  from  which  all  sculpture  had  suffered  in 
common  with  the  other  arts,  owing  to  the  unsettled 
state  of  the  western  world.  There  had  been  everywhere 
almost  a  total  want  of  originality,  a  copying  from 
antique  bas-reliefs  by  men  who  in  artistic  intelligence 
were  hardly  above  the  level  of  the  artisan.  It  was 
not  until  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century  that  a 
real  awakening  of  the  sculptural  arts  begins  to  be 
apparent.  Then  came  the  crusades  and  the  intercourse 
with  the  east.  Workmen  of  all  kinds  accompanied 
the  armies  and  brought  home  with  them  the  oriental 
systems  of  ornament,  which  they  adapted  to  their  already 
existing  methods  and  national  feeling.  Syria  was  able 
to  furnish  friezes,  bas-reliefs,  the  capitals  of  columns 
and  other  architectural  details,  and  figure  work,  but  for 
pure  statuary  there  was  no  indebtedness.  It  will  not 
be  wholly  without  value  to  remind   ourselves  of  the 

36 


MEDIAEVAL 

capture  of  Antioch  and  Jerusalem,  and  of  the  virtual 
occupation  of  the  Holy  Land  in  the  first  crusade,  of 
the  second  crusade  preached  by  St.  Bernard,  of  the  third 
under  our  own  King  Richard,  of  the  fourth,  and  of  the 
fifth  which  will  bring  us  to  the  fall  of  Constantinople 
in  the  third  year  of  the  thirteenth  century.  During  all 
this  time  the  influence  of  the  monastic  establishments 
on  the  arts  was  gradually  diminishing  and  guilds  were 
organizing.  They  were  the  true  revivalists  who  re- 
stored the  art  of  sculpture  to  the  position  it  had  lost : 
a  restoration  which,  though  apparently  a  sudden  one 
about  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  had  no 
doubt  been  prepared  for  by  long  years  of  persistent 
training.  The  Cluniac  order,  already  established  more 
than  a  century,  was  the  most  active  centre,  and  exercised 
a  powerful  influence  on  the  arts  of  the  whole  region  of 
the  west.  It  was  the  most  learned,  if  not  indeed  the 
only,  order  of  the  time  really  learned  in  the  arts.  Its 
houses  covered  France  and  Spain,  and  at  a  later  period 
Italy,  Germany,  and  England,  while  at  the  same  time 
its  relations  with  the  east  were  constant.  We  should 
expect  then  to  find  in  those  examples  of  w^ood  sculpture 
that  can  be  adduced,  the  influence  of  Byzantine  hieratism, 
and  the  conventional  systems  of  draperies.  It  is  not 
easy  to  resume  in  a  few  words  these  influences,  nor 
should  an  undue  weight  be  given  to  those  resulting 
from  the  operations  of  the  crusades.  Other  causes  had, 
since  a  long  period,  caused  an  immense  influx  of  Greek 
monks  into  Europe,  who  had  brought  with  them 
manuscripts  and  other  works  of  Byzantine  art,  and  the 
commercial  relations  with  Italy — with  Venice  especially 
— had  helped  to  spread  these  things  in  Germany, 
France,  and  England.  The  southern  schools  of  France 
—  Limoges,  Toulouse,  Poitiers,  Provence  —  and  the 
Rhine  provinces  were  at  the  close  of  the  eleventh 
century  absolutely  Byzantine.  We  must  suppose  that, 
in  the  wood-carving  of  those  days,  there  were  also  those 

37 

^  0  '(  O  5 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

long-limbed  emaciated  figures,  pearl-bordered  long 
clinging  robes  and  pointed  shoes  that  we  find  in  our 
ivories.  It  is  to  the  monks  of  Citeaux  and  of  Cluny 
that  we  owe  the  beginnings  of  an  observation  of  nature, 
some  attempts  at  least  at  dramatic  movement,  some 
attention  in  their  figures  to  the  life  which  they  saw 
around  them.  It  is  indeed  against  these  very  methods 
that  St.  Bernard  fulminated  his  famous  diatribe.  The 
statuary  sculptor,  turning  to  nature,  had  begun  to  draw 
from  it  under  idealized  forms  what  he  saw  with  his 
eyes.  It  is  the  age  of  idealism  which  will  lead,  slowly 
but  surely,  as  suggested  in  the  introductory  chapter, 
to  realism.  The  monastic  artists  of  the  twelfth  century 
prepared  the  way  by  the  partial  emancipation  at  least 
from  Byzantine  formulae.  They  must  have  contributed 
the  earliest  impulse,  for  they  alone  were  the  instructors 
and  employers  of  labour.  The  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  order  of 
things.  The  control  of  art  initiative  has  to  pass  out 
from  the  cloister  into  the  world.  Lay  corporations  and 
lay  workers  supersede  the  monk  in  the  direction  of 
works,  though  still  almost  the  only  art  is  that  which 
is  devoted  to  the  service  of  religion.  The  courts  of 
kings  and  nobles  are  too  much  occupied  with  warlike 
pursuits  to  make  much  demand  for  the  luxuries  of 
domestic  establishments.  But  a  spirit  of  communism  is 
abroad.  Guilds  are  established — trade  unions  in  fact 
— which  bind  themselves  to  obey  codes  of  regulations 
which  they  themselves  have  drawn  up,  instead  of  sub- 
mitting to  the  orders  of  enclosed  corporations,  ignorant 
of  the  life  outside  and  of  the  demands  which  it  is 
beginning  to  make.  Independent  schools  are  formed, 
entirely  emancipated  from  the  monastic  yoke.  It  must, 
however,  be  admitted  that  it  is  not  easy  to  be  absolutely 
precise  regarding  the  relations  between  these  inde- 
pendent workers  and  the  great  abbeys.  The  general 
direction  of  architectural  and  sculptural  work  for  the 

38 


MEDIEVAL 

use  of  the  Church  must  still  have  been  in  the  hands  of 
the  latter,  and  the  changes  were  gradual.  But  a  more 
settled  condition  of  social  life  had  begun  to  prevail. 
In  the  troublous  dark  ages,  between  the  seventh  and 
eleventh  centuries,  the  producers  in  every  craft  took 
refuge  under  the  shadow  of  the  monasteries,  where  they 
followed  their  apprenticeships  and  worked  afterwards 
in  submission  to  what  was  the  ruling  power.  Continual 
wars  and  local  strifes  hindered  any  kind  of  artistic 
activity  among  the  mass  of  the  people.  With  the  new 
era  new  ideas  took  the  place  of  the  former  rigidity  of 
rules,  and  the  freedom  was  everywhere  welcomed,  even 
by  the  secular  clergy.  Yet,  though  the  lay  element 
had  come  in,  sculptor  monks  still  moved  about  from 
province  to  province,  from  country  to  country,  and  we 
cannot  be  precise  regarding  the  question  how  far  this 
or  that  work  is  peculiar  to  the  locality  in  which  it 
appears  to  have  been  introduced.  For  direction,  the 
science  must  still  have  come  from  the  learned,  the 
travelled  ones  of  the  monastery.  Geometry,  drawing, 
the  principles  of  Greek  art,  the  science  of  symbolism 
and  the  rest — all  these  it  was  their  province  to  transmit 
to  the  lay  apprentice,  who  might  then  be  left  to  his 
individual  inspiration.  The  lay  artists,  following,  no 
doubt,  the  principles  in  which  they  had  been  educated, 
enjoyed  a  greater  amount  of  intellectual  liberty,  and 
used  their  intelligence  to  discard  whatever  hide-bound 
regulations  they  considered  to  be  no  longer  up  to  date. 
They  wanted  a  freer  choice  of  subject  and  of  methods 
of  expressing  it.  One  must  imagine  also  that  the 
workmen  moved  about  more  freely  from  place  to  place, 
forming  themselves  into  bands  under  a  master  crafts- 
man whenever  they  heard  that  some  great  work — as 
for  example  the  building  of  Canterbury — was  in 
progress. 


39 


CHAPTER   I  II 

THE  THIRTEENTH,  FOURTEENTH,  AND  FIFTEENTH 
CENTURIES— GUILDS  AND  CORPORATIONS 


A 


T  the  dose  of  the  twelfth  and  in  the  opening 
years  of  the  thirteenth  century  there  was  a 
wave  of  enthusiasm,  an  immense  activity  in 
church-building  everywhere.  Abundant  liberality  pro- 
vided for  the  erection  of  imposing  cathedrals  in  the  cities, 
of  magnificent  parish  churches  even  in  the  most  remote 
districts  and  amongst  sparse  populations.  The  spirit 
which  was  the  real  moving  one  in  all  this — in  our  own 
country  especially — has  always  been  a  difficult  one  to 
account  for.  With  every  allowance  made  for  the  piety 
of  the  age,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  largely  due 
to  the  development  of  civic  life,  the  prosperity  of  trade 
generally,  the  crusades  and  intercourse  with  the  east, 
and  to  a  new-born  understanding  of,  and  enthusiasm 
for,  the  industrial  arts,  which  procured  a  call  for  their 
employment,  and  a  response  to  demands  consequent  on 
increasing  luxury  and  ideas  of  comfort.  It  was  a 
national  movement.  But  the  Church  in  those  days  was 
the  only  centre  of  life  and  movement,  and  afforded  the 
chief  medium  of  expression  for  the  artistic  tendencies 
which  had  become  so  developed.  If,  then,  there  were 
piety  and  a  desire  to  beautify  the  house  of  God,  there 
was  also  an  appeal  to  the  judgment  and  admiration  of 
men,  which  in  this  regard  had  hitherto,  in  conformity 
with  monastic  rules,  been  rigidly  suppressed.  As  Dr. 
Jessopp  writes  :  '  The  immense  treasures  in  the  churches 
40 


GUILDS    AND    CORPORATIONS 

were  the  joy  and  boast  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
in  England,  who,  day  by  day,  and  week  by  week, 
assembled  to  worship  in  the  old  houses  of  God  which 
they  and  their  fathers  had  built,  and  whose  every  vest- 
ment and  chalice  and  candlestick,  and  banner  and 
organ,  and  bells  and  pictures,  and  image  and  altar  and 
shrine,  they  looked  upon  as  their  own  and  part  of  their 
birthright.'  {Studies  by  a  Recluse  in  Cloister,  Toiun, 
and  Country.) 

The  artist  sculptor,  no  longer  tied  to  the  copying 
over  and  over  again  according  to  a  formula  supplied 
to  him,  looked  for  the  motives  of  his  ornamentation 
in  the  human,  animal,  and  vegetable  life  around 
him.  The  vine  was  not  the  only  symbol,  and  if 
symbolism  were  required  it  was  open  to  any  one  to 
apply  it  from  all  the  flora  of  nature,  and  so,  as  we 
shall  see,  in  capital  and  corbel,  in  roof  and  screen,  in 
sculptured  stone,  or  carved  wood,  he  would  use  the 
clinging  ivy,  leafwork  and  fruit  of  oak,  the  trailing 
eglantine,  the  fern  and  all  the  common  plants  and  fruits 
familiar  to  his  locality.  Happily  for  his  art,  the 
traditions  derived  originally  from  the  cloister  taught 
him  to  avoid  mere  imitation.  The  guilds,  however 
independent  in  the  working  of  their  regulations,  were 
still  under  the  control  of  the  Church. 

A  guild  or  corporation  was  a  kind  of  large  family 
comprising  all  those  who  aspired  to  the  craft  it  practised. 
It  had  its  various  grades  of  apprentice,  craftsman,  and 
master,  the  last  an  office  of  honour  often  accorded  to 
some  great  lord.  It  possessed,  usually,  its  own  chantry 
chapel  in  the  cathedral  church,  its  hall,  its  processional 
banners,  benevolent  fund,  collars,  jewels  and  other 
insignia,  and  enjoyed  numerous  civic  privileges.  To 
this  day,  as  is  well  known,  the  shadow  remains  in  our 
city  companies  and  in  various  guilds  in  other  coun- 
tries. The  purpose  of  their  existence  was  a  practical 
one,  always,  however,  in  submission  to  or  under  the 

41 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

influences  of  religion.  A  notable  circumstance  is  that 
in  every  country  these  associations  were  placed  under 
the  patronage  of  St.  Luke.  The  origin  of  the  invo- 
cation is  uncertain.  It  is  known,  of  course,  that  in 
hagiology  St.  Luke  is  considered  to  have  been  an 
accomplished  painter  and  sculptor.  Some,  however, 
hold  that,  by  a  fortuitous  circumstance  not  unparalleled 
in  the  rise  of  legendary  stories,  the  founder  of  the 
system  was  a  Florentine  painter  of  holy  life,  and  of  the 
same  name,  in  the  twelfth  century.  The  image  makers 
—  tailleiirs  d images,  imagiers,  beeldersnyders  or 
beeldeniakers,  amongst  other  appellations  in  France 
and  in  the  Netherlands  —  were  the  sculptors  of 
the  Middle  Ages  with  no  distinctions  as  to  material, 
whether  stone,  or  wood,  or  ivory.  The  system  of 
their  guilds  probably  differed  but  little  in  the  various 
countries,  and  at  the  beginning,  at  least,  they  worked 
freely  and  independently.  Paris  was  the  first — about 
the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century — to  combine  in  one 
corporation  the  guilds  of  the  imagers  with  those  of  the 
painters  and  illuminators,  and  to  bring  them  under  a 
stringent  code  of  statutes.  The  huchers  or  hiichiers 
(Flem.  screenwerkers)  were  a  lower  class  of  workmen, 
makers  of  chests  and  furniture  of  all  sorts,  and  the 
architectural  part  of  choir-work  as  distinguished  from 
the  imagery.  All,  whether  carvers  of  images  or  other 
decorative  work,  coffer-makers,  huchers  or  table  or 
bench  makers,  were  under  the  master  carpenters,  and 
the  strictest  regulations  were  enforced  regarding  the 
quality  of  wood  to  be  used.  In  Flanders  the  profession 
of  wood  sculpture  was  one  of  the  most  ancient  in  the 
guild  of  Saint  Luke,  and  by  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century  formed  a  distinct  corporation,  undertaking  such 
important  works  as  were  everywhere  in  evidence  ;  choir 
and  stall  work  as  at  Rouen  or  Amiens,  or  the  great 
retables  for  which  the  wood-carvers  of  the  Netherlands 
were  everywhere  famous.  The  principle  upon  which 
42 


THE    MASTER    WORKMAN 

the  guilds  were  founded  was  that  of  a  community  under 
the  direction  of  a  master  mason  or  a  master  carpenter 
as  the  case  might  be,  the  whole  subordinated  to  the 
general  plan  which,  while  prescribing  the  position  and 
dimensions  of,  for  example,  a  capital  or  a  frieze  or  the 
arrangement  of  stall  work,  left  the  artist  sculptor  free 
scope,  in  his  own  particular  department,  for  individual 
expression.  Not  otherwise  can  we  understand  the 
creation  of  the  elaborate  choir  work  of  Amiens,  or  of 
Ulm  and  so  many  others.  The  idea  must  be  grasped 
generally,  as  it  would  be  impossible  to  consider  it  here 
in  its  details.  The  most  important  thing  to  remember 
is  the  subordination  to  the  general  conception  of  the 
edifice  both  in  form  and  colour,  and  that  every  portion, 
from  painted  window  to  ^^  joules  of  the  stalls,  played  its 
part  in  the  production  of  the  harmony.  Subject  to  this 
there  w^as  a  general  absence  of  specialization  and  par- 
ticular distinction  among  the  arts.  Most  men  were 
practised  in  several.  The  system  implied  local  govern- 
ment, popular  interest  and  readiness  to  help  in  any 
capacity.  As  Ruskin  says  in  his  Seven  Lamps  of 
Architecture,  the  master  workman  must  have  been  the 
person  who  carved  the  bas-reliefs  in  the  porches,  and 
to  him  all  others  must  have  been  subordinate.  The 
number  of  sculptors  was  so  great  that  it  would  no 
more  have  been  thought  necessary  to  state  regarding 
the  builder  that  he  could  carve  a  statue  than  that  he 
could  measure  an  angle  or  strike  a  curve.  At  a  sale 
of  autographs  at  Sotheby's  in  the  present  year  was  one 
of  Ruskin,  to  a  friend,  in  which  he  declares  that 
'  neither  Gilbert  Scott  nor  anybody  else  can  build 
Gothic  or  Italian,'  and  this,  because  architects  are  not 
now  also  sculptors.  'All  real  work  in  these  styles,' 
he  continues,  '  depends  primarily  on  mastery  of  figure 
sculpture.'  However  arbitrarily  conveyed,  the  dictum 
is  one  which  cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  upon. 
The  French  sculptor  Rodin,  in  a  conversation  reported 

43 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

by  Frederic  Lawton  in  his  Life  and  IVork  of  the  artist, 
expressed  the  same  idea.  He  said  :  '  the  aim  of  the 
Gothic  artist  was  to  fashion  something  that  should 
have  its  full  meaning  and  produce  its  full  effect  only 
in  the  place  where  it  was  to  stand.  They  carved  for 
the  architecture,  not  for  themselves.'  We  are  aware 
what  importance  is  to-day  attached  to  the  position  of 
the  conductor  of  an  orchestra,  and  how  greatly  it  differs 
from  the  time-beater  of  fifty  years  ago,  how  he  holds 
supreme  control  of  the  whole,  and  how,  as  it  were, 
through  this  control,  he  plays  every  instrument  which 
composes  it.  This,  it  would  seem,  was  the  office  of 
the  mediaeval  master  builder. 

The  earliest  regulations  concerning  carvings  in 
wood  are  very  precise.  The  wood  was  submitted  to 
the  most  rigid  selection  by  officials  appointed  for  the 
purpose,  in  order  that  the  quality,  seasoning,  and 
freedom  from  knots  and  shakes  should  be  guaranteed. 
There  are  no  end  of  regulations  concerning  careful  and 
correct  morticing  and  so  on.  Nothing  in  a  figure 
was  to  be  joined,  except  in  the  case  of  a  crucifix,  for 
which  three  pieces  were  allowed.  Finally  the  marks 
of  the  corporation  and  of  the  sculptor  were  impressed. 

When  the  fourteenth  century  opened,  while  Gothic 
art  was  still  in  its  full  splendour,  the  new  tendencies 
towards  a  return  to  nature  as  distinguished  from 
the  conventions  imposed  by  scholastic  philosophy 
may  be  said  to  have  more  than  asserted  themselves. 
There  was  everywhere,  in  sculpture  as  in  painting,  a 
desire  to  profit  by  the  personal  observation  of  nature, 
and  to  deduce  from  this  what  we  call  realism.  Under 
the  altered  circumstances  which  have  been  briefly  in- 
dicated in  the  preceding  pages  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  condition  of  the  artist  sculptor  and  the  artist  painter 
should  have  been  immeasurably  raised.  The  first  was 
no  longer  a  mere  craftsman,  a  chipper  of  stone  or  wood 
working  to  order  with  ideas  supplied  to  him — by  rule 

44 


TWELFTH    CENTURY    IN    FRANCE 

of  thumb,  indeed,  as  the  Greek  carver  of  icons  works 
to  this  day.  Instead,  he  found  himself  in  a  position 
of  relative  independence.  He  became,  in  fact,  a  per- 
sonage of  considerable  importance  in  the  social  scale. 
Great  princes  and  nobles  sought  him  out  and  attached 
him  to  their  courts,  not  merely  as  their  servant,  but  as 
a  confidential  friend.  So  it  is  that  at  the  courts  of  the 
dukes  of  Burgundy,  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  and 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  we  find  Claus  Sluter 
and  his  companions  part  of  the  princely  households  : 
Sluter  himself  valet  de  chambre  to  Philip  the  Bold,  in 
those  days  equivalent  to  a  title  of  nobility. 

We  have  little  information  concerning  the  condition 
of  wood  sculpture  in  France  in  the  twelfth  century. 
Examples,  as  elsewhere,  are  wanting.  It  is  probable 
that,  in  common  with  monumental  sculpture  in  stone, 
it  preserved  the  ancient  traditions,  and  was  exercised 
principally  in  the  southern  provinces,  and  in  such 
centres  as  Toulouse.  To  this  region  we  are  indebted, 
no  doubt,  for  numbers  of  the  archaic  crucifix  and 
Madonna  figures,  which  will  be  noted  later  in  their 
place.  In  Poitou,  la  Saintonge,  Normandy,  the  He  de 
France,  Picardy,  or  Auvergne,  the  ornament  was  still 
confined  for  the  most  part  to  the  friezes  and  capitals  of 
pillars  derived  from  Byzantine  models.  But  in  Bur- 
gundy— at  Vezelay  or  Autun  for  example — the  Cluniac 
order  had  reached  an  immense  development  and  influ- 
ence. Where  the  principal  Cluniac  monasteries  were 
situated,  statuary,  though  still  modelled  upon  the  con- 
ventional hieratism,  had  made  considerable  progress. 
It  is  necessary  to  say  modelled  on,  for  it  was  more 
adaptation  with  entirely  French  differences  of  features 
and  drapery  than  unintelligent  copying.  In  the  He 
de  France  and  Normandy  statuary  was  non-existent. 
Poitou  and  Toulouse  were  in  complete  decadence. 
There  was,  of  course,  the  mid-twelfth  western  doorway 
of  Chartres  with  its  statuary.     But  in  most  regions  the 

45 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

type  was  rigid,  individuality  of  the  personages  repre- 
sented wholly  lacking.  The  thirteenth  century  dawned, 
and  the  great  change  was  effected  by  the  organization 
of  the  laity  outside  the  enclosures  where  art  had  so 
long  been  in  the  hands  of  dreamers  poring  over  their 
books.  French  furniture,  earlier  than  the  thirteenth 
century,  is  confined  to  the  very  few  existing,  prac- 
tically unornamented,  pieces  of  the  type  of  the  Obazine 
armoire.  But  this,  with  its  extreme  simplicity,  is  a 
model  of  solid  elegance,  and  the  long  iron  hinges  are, 
as  decoration,  charming  and  sufficient  in  themselves. 
What  images  we  have  in  wood  of  the  first  years  of  the 
fourteenth  century  certainly  begin  to  show  a  more 
realistic  character.  Instead  of  the  conventional, 
smiling,  simpering  type,  they  appear  to  be  more 
approaching  real  life,  at  any  rate  to  have  been  sug- 
gested by  a  living  model.  The  ivory  *  bend  '  continues, 
but  this  is  merely  fashion.  As  the  century  progresses 
the  tendency  to  exuberance  and  overloading  in  response 
to  the  demand  for  display,  both  ecclesiastical  and  civil, 
is  marked.  However  this  may  be,  no  department  of 
artistic  industry  in  France  showed  more  splendid 
results  than  are  found  in  the  examples  of  wood 
sculpture  generally  which  still  adorn  so  many  of  the 
cathedrals  throughout  the  country.  In  the  earlier 
days  we  find  some  difficulty  in  distinguishing  a  type 
or  method  which  we  can  call  national,  nor  was  the 
art  of  wood  sculpture  so  diligently  practised  as  by  the 
Fleming,  or  in  Germany  where  the  material  was  more 
abundant.  The  Flemish  wood-carvers  seem  to  have 
long  preserved  the  lead  throughout  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, and  in  the  fifteenth  one  is  always  tempted  to 
ascribe  to  Flanders  the  most  striking  examples  of  figure 
work.  The  general  character  was  the  same,  and  the 
overlapping  of  frontiers,  added  to  the  practice  of  bands 
of  workmen  being  engaged  far  from  their  own  homes 
— not  to  mention  the  ubiquitous  Fleming — renders  the 

46 


TOURAINE 

task  of  distinction  still  more  difficult.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  towards  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  there  was  one  district  where  sculpture  of  all 
kinds,  including  wood-carving,  was  practised  with 
remarkable  activity.  This  was  in  Touraine,  and 
examples  from  that  school  are  the  more  interesting  on 
account  of  its  connexion  with  the  courts  of  the  dukes 
of  Burgundy,  and  because  from  it  we  may  gather  some 
precise  idea  of  the  quality  of  French  art  in  wood  of 
that  period.  Some  then,  of  which  the  French  origin  is 
certain,  may  be  selected.  The  first  belong  to  the  region 
of  Tours,  about  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  apart  from  their  individual  charm  their  interest  is 
heightened  from  the  fact  that  Michel  Colombe  and  his 
compatriot,  Jean  Fouquet,  established  their  workshops 
in  that  district.  These  are  three  panels  of  oak  acquired 
by  the  Louvre  about  fifteen  years  ago  :  part  of  a  set, 
for  a  few  others  are  known  in  private  collections.  On 
each,  in  low  relief,  is  an  angel  holding  a  shield  on 
which  is  represented  one  of  the  instruments  of  the 
Passion :  the  nails,  the  winding-sheet,  the  purse  of 
Judas,  and  the  rods.  All  are  characterized  by  a  similar 
type  of  face  and  figure,  by  the  outstretched  wings,  the 
same  model  of  smiling  face  and  arrangement  of  the 
hair,  the  long  straight  folds  of  the  alb-like  garments, 
and  a  peculiarly  marked  bending  of  the  knees.  At  one 
time,  in  the  church  of  Ronzieres,  in  Touraine,  they  were 
formerly  coloured,  and  traces  of  this  remain  under  the 
later  and  badly  added  daubing.  Nothing  could  be 
more  French,  nothing  more  simply  elegant  and  natural. 
Instead  of  the  arbitrary  exaggeration  of  the  angular 
folds  which  distinguish  the  Flemish  draperies  of  the 
period,  the  lines  of  the  tunics  fall  gracefully  and 
naturally ;  the  details  of  the  wings  and  of  the  hair  are 
indicated  with  precision,  yet  without  undue  prominence, 
and  one  cannot  help  remarking  with  what  art  the 
sculptor  has  expressed  the  value  of  an  accessory  such 

47 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

as  the  scourge.  And  yet  one  asks  oneself  are  these  the 
work  of  an  established  workshop,  almost  a  commercial 
product,  or  rather,  as  one  feels,  due  to  some  simple 
inhabitant  of  the  district,  naturally  endowed,  and  so 
more  touching  in  their  spontaneous  feeling?  In  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  are  some  larger  panels  of 
walnut,  with  angels  bearing  shields,  of  the  Savoyard 
school  of  the  early  sixteenth  century,  which  are  worth 
comparing  with  those  just  described  (Plate  ii.).  The 
general  type  was  a  favourite  one  everywhere.  In  Eng- 
land, on  bench  ends  and  other  places  many  will  be 
found. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  relations  of  French  art 
with  other  nationalities  in  the  more  northern  provinces, 
here,  in  Touraine,  it  is  of  the  country  undiluted.  At  the 
same  time  at  this  period  changes  were  imminent.  The 
Italian  invasion  was  rapidly  approaching.  In  the  con- 
cluding years  of  the  century  the  court  of  Charles  viii. 
was  making  its  progress  through  the  province,  and 
brinofinsr  in  its  train  Italian  masters  for  the  decoration 
of  the  royal  castles  of  Amboise,  of  Blois,  or  of  Cham- 
bord.  It  is  small  wonder,  therefore,  if  the  simple  native 
art-workers  were  tempted  to  learn  from  and  assimilate 
the  new  style.  They  were  no  less  clever  than  their 
teachers,  and  here,  and  through  the  assimilation,  arose 
the  French  Renaissance.  For,  in  accordance  with  the 
genius  of  the  national  character,  they  took  the  idea  only 
and  worked  it  out  for  themselves  in  their  own  way. 

In  the  same  connexion  of  ideas  a  brief  reference 
may  be  made  to  some  examples  of  French  Burgundian 
statuary  work  in  wood  and  stone  of  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries  in  the  region  of  Autun.  An  important 
collection  of  these  figures  is  to  be  found  in  the  Musee 
Rollin  at  Autun.  These  have  by  no  means  the  high 
value  and  artistic  merit  of  the  Tourangelle  examples, 
local  and  personal  though  some  of  them  may  be. 
Several,  indeed,  such  as  the  St.  Andrew,  in  wood, 
48 


f 


/'/.  I  /•/•.  // 


l»#5^ 


rr 


T 


1.4.  tUi  ;.•  ^ 


i 


I'ANIil.S    WITH    .\.\<;KLS.     SOUlMKkN    1KKN(  II    (S\\(iN  Akli) 
SIXTEENTH   CENTUKV 

VICTkkia   ami  ALUKMT    MtSKlM 


POLITICAL    INFLUENCES 

make  us  pause  before  we  can  persuade  ourselves  that 
they  belong  to  the  region,  and  are  not  importations 
from  very  much  farther  north.  But  there  are  others — 
for  the  most  part  coloured — which  are  of  interest  as 
examples  of  local  characteristics  and  of  various  influ- 
ences steadily  imposing  themselves  in  these  districts  at 
a  period  of  transition,  while  yet  Gothic  methods  and 
feeling  held  the  field.  A  remarkable  portrait  statuette  of 
a  man  in  the  hunting  costume  of  the  time  of  Louis 
XIII.  is  important  from  its  absolute  naturalism,  for 
although  it  is  said  to  represent  St.  Hubert,  or  even 
St.  George,  there  appears  to  be  not  the  smallest  trace 
of  any  saintly  character  or  attribute.  The  reader  must 
be  referred  to  the  article  and  illustrations  in  the  Gazette 
des  Beaux  Arts  for  November  1909. 

The  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  might  present  some 
difficulties  if  we  should  attempt  to  draw  deductions 
from  the  political  conditions  of  France,  especially  in  the 
northern  provinces.  Under  our  own  King  Edward  in. 
the  English  were  still,  roughly  speaking,  in  possession  of 
Picardy,  and  of  most  of  the  south-western  part  of  the 
country  from  north  of  Poitiers  to  Spain,  and  bounded  on 
the  east  by  Auvergne,  Touraine,  and  Languedoc.  The 
southern  provinces  were  lost  at  his  death,  but  England 
still  retained  Aquitaine  and  Guienne.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  fifteenth  century  Paris  itself  becomes  an  English 
town.  But  the  strongest  influence  of  all,  particularly 
affecting  our  subject,  was  caused  by  the  political  cir- 
cumstances which  joined  together  the  French  and 
Flemish  possessions  of  the  dukes  of  Burgundy.  Nor 
is  it,  perhaps,  altogether  a  factor  to  be  neglected  that  it 
was  these  dukes,  especially  the  first  of  them,  Philip  the 
Bold,  who — vassals  though  they  were  supposed  to 
be  of  the  kings  of  France — aided  the  English  in  the 
conquest  of  the  country.  They  were  our  allies  at 
Crecy  and  at  Poitiers.  But  it  was  the  marriage  of 
Philip  with  Marguerite  de  Valois,  heiress  of  Flanders, 
D  49 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

that  brought  about  the  decisive  influence  on  the  arts. 
The  dukes  of  Burgundy,  in  their  unrestrained  passion 
for  display  and  magnificence,  were  able  to  gratify  it 
through  the  vast  wealth  which  the  possession  of  the 
richest  industrial  towns  of  Flanders  afforded  them. 
The  two  courts  combined  formed  a  centre  of  splen- 
dour and  extravagance.  The  sovereigns  surrounded 
themselves  with  luxuries,  and  gathered  together  an 
army  of  workers,  painters,  sculptors,  goldsmiths,  and 
retainers  of  all  kinds  who  flocked  to  them,  from  the 
French  provinces  still  held  by  England,  to  assist  in  the 
adornment  of  their  numberless  palaces  and  castles. 
Two  streams  of  art  met  at  Dijon,  the  French  capital  of 
the  duchy.  It  was  a  time  when  Flanders  had  become 
the  principal  centre  of  art  in  Europe,  when  Van  Eyck, 
Rogier  Van  der  Weyden,  and  their  schools  were  the 
teachers  and  directors,  not  only  in  painting  proper  but, 
to  a  very  great  extent,  in  all  the  arts,  and  in  an  especial 
manner  in  that  of  wood-carving.  From  Brussels, 
Antwerp,  Tournay,  Bruges,  Ypres,  Ghent,  or  Liege, 
craftsmen  came  in  swarms,  or  followed  the  court  as 
they  moved  between  the  two  great  capitals. 

It  was  at  Dijon  that  Philip  built  the  Chartreuse  of 
Champmol,  and  for  its  church  were  made  in  1391  two 
great  retables,  notable  landmarks  in  the  history  of  wood 
sculpture.  These  were  the  work  of  the  Flemish  artists 
Jacques  de  Baerze  and  Melchior  Broederlam.  There, 
too,  are  the  magnificent  sedilia  for  priest,  deacon,  and 
subdeacon,  made  by  Hennequin  of  Liege.  These  are 
but  a  few  examples  of  the  wood-carvers'  skill  at  the 
Chartreuse,  where  the  art  itself  had  established  a  school 
of  no  inferior  importance  amongst  the  other  schools  of 
sculpture.  Of  the  sculptors,  if  precise  information  is 
lacking  concerning  the  parts  played  by  each  in  divers 
works,  we  know  the  names  at  least  of  the  leaders — Jeande 
Marville  and  his  nephew  and  successor,  Nicolas  or  Claus 
Sluter,  the  architect  of  the  famous  tomb  of  the  founder, 

50 


I'l.ATK  III 


BURGUNDIAN 

and  of  the  hardly  less  famous  '  Puits  de  Moise.'  Each 
of  the  retables  consists  of  three  panels  of  figures  in  full 
relief,  with  foliage  and  flower  work  in  dead  gold  on 
backgrounds  of  colour.  The  central  subjects  are  from 
the  gospel  narrative — the  decollation  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  the  Visit  of  the  Magi,  the  Crucifixion  and 
Entombment — legends  of  SS.  Antony,  Catherine,  and 
Barbara,  and  others  drawn  from  the  Golden  Legend. 
Over  all  is  the  most  remarkable  architectural  desitrn  of 
sculptured  arcades  of  any  that  we  possess  in  wood,  so 
refined  and  delicate  is  it  in  detail  and  in  general  effect. 
The  whole,  except  the  flesh  tints  and  some  of  the 
draperies,  is  fully  gilded.  The  question  of  the  extent 
of  the  influence  of  the  Fleming  on  French  art  is  a 
complicated  one.  These  great  retables,  amongst  other 
sculpture  at  Dijon,  we  know  are  due  to  Flemish  artists, 
and  the  masters,  such  as  Sluter,  in  the  service  of  the 
duke,  seem  to  have  set  their  faces  against  employing 
any  but  their  countrymen.  Yet  the  art,  whatever  its 
origin,  was  fostered  in  France,  and  if  the  stranger  came 
in  it  is  probable  that,  as  elsewhere,  he  assimilated  much 
of  the  spirit  and  preferences  which  he  already  found  in 
the  country.  Nor  was  France,  at  the  time,  unused  to 
dramatic  treatment  of  sacred  scenes  in  the  manner  of 
the  retables.  The  churches  of  Dijon,  of  Autun,  or  of 
Vezelay,  of  Albi,  of  Toulouse,  and  indeed  throughout 
the  east  and  south  of  France,  can  testify  to  thi§.  But 
we  are  inclined  to  marvel  all  the  more  at  such  excep- 
tionally fine  and  original  work  as  that  of  Sluter  and 
his  school  when  we  remember  that  when  these  master- 
pieces were  achieved  Donatello  was  yet  to  be  born,  and 
Michael  Angelo  to  be  unheard  of  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury later.  This  Flemish  art  is,  therefore,  an  important 
link  in  the  chain  of  the  arts  between  the  traditional 
methods  of  Niccola  of  Pisa  and  the  evolution  accom- 
plished by  the  great  names  of  the  Renaissance  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Alps. 

51 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Wood-carving  as  applied  to  the  decoration  of 
domestic  furniture  of  a  luxurious  kind  at  the  end 
of  the  fourteenth  and  throughout  the  fifteenth  century 
differed  hardly  at  all  from  that  which  characterized 
the  choir  and  other  woodwork  for  the  service  of 
the  church.  Immense  thronelike  seats  were  covered 
with  sculptured  panels,  carved  with  window  tracery, 
and  with  subjects  in  various  degrees  of  relief,  taken 
from  Scripture  or  from  lives  of  the  saints.  From 
the  summits  of  their  monumentally  high  backs  pro- 
jected broad  canopies  supported  by  traceried  vaultings, 
with  saintly  images  and  other  figures  in  full  relief,  in 
every  way  comparable  with  the  choir  and  screen  work 
of  religious  edifices.  In  addition  to  the  panels  with 
religious  subjects  we  find  others  w^ith  the  linen  pattern 
in  many  varieties,  or  with  intricate  arrangements  of 
floral  leaf-work,  pendentives,  arcades,  corbels,  pinnacles, 
colonnettes,  figures  of  angels  and  cherubs,  and  a 
general  decoration  borrowed  from  architectural  sys- 
tems and  enriched  with  every  imaginable  caprice. 
Nothing  but  innumerable  illustrations  could  give  an 
idea  of  the  infinite  variety.  Bedsteads  of  the  fifteenth 
century  are  of  extreme  rarity  either  in  France,  the 
Netherlands,  or  in  England.  But  we  can  gather  from 
miniatures,  or  from  the  carvings  of  such  stall-work  as 
at  Amiens,  that  these,  together  with  the  great  armoires, 
the  dressers  and  credence  tables,  were  of  a  like  archi- 
tectural character  and  profusion  of  ornament.  Bed- 
steads of  this  period  are  more  common  in  Germany. 
In  general  the  form  was  either  that  which  we  now  call 
half-tester,  the  head,  foot,  and  canopy  elaborately 
carved,  or  a  kind  of  boxed-in  enclosure  or  alcove.  A 
typical  example  is  illustrated  by  Mr.  Baillie  Grohman 
in  the  description  of  his  castle  at  Matzen  in  the 
Austrian  Tyrol  {see  '  The  Land  in  the  Mountains '). 

Throughout  the  Gothic  period  in  France  it  would 
be  useless  to  attempt  to  distinguish  styles  in  the 
52 


FLANDERS 

various  provinces.  Practically  there  was  but  one,  and 
to  ascribe  this  or  that  example  to  a  particular  district 
is  very  often  purely  hypothetical.  Nor,  without  devot- 
ing more  space  to  one  country  than  would  be  justifiable, 
is  it  possible  in  a  book  of  this  kind  even  to  allude  to 
numbers  of  examples  of  monumental  wood  sculpture 
which  possess  from  so  many  points  of  view  an  interest 
apart  from  the  beauty  which  distinguishes  them.  This 
is  the  case,  for  example,  with  such  illustrations  of  pure 
Gothic,  and  the  mixture  of  Gothic  and  the  classic  of 
the  Renaissance,  as  we  find,  together  with  a  perfection  of 
execution,  in  the  flamboyant  central  doors  of  Rouen,  or 
the  great  doors  of  the  cathedral  of  Aix.  Of  the  latter 
the  attention  of  the  reader  may  be  called  to  the  excellent 
reproduction  in  the  gallery  of  casts  in  the  museum  at 
Kensington. 

The  characteristics  of  Flemish  art  of  the  periods 
with  which  we  are  most  particularly  concerned  are  not 
easy  to  define.  Strong  in  its  influence  upon  others,  it 
is  itself  the  result  of  numerous  foreign  impressions. 
From  its  geographical  and  political  position  the 
country  has  been,  turn  and  turn  about,  now  half 
French  or  Spanish,  now  under  the  strong  influence 
of  her  German  neighbour :  affected  by  the  dynastic 
alliances  with  England  under  Charles  the  Bold  of 
Burgundy,  or,  again,  with  those  of  Austria  and  Spain. 
In  general,  the  art  of  a  people  reflects  the  character  and 
inclinations  of  the  race.  The  Fleming,  so  sincerely 
attached  to  his  home,  was  essentially  a  traveller  in 
search  of  business,  with  the  natural  consequence  that 
the  artist  who  travelled,  whether  to  sell  his  wares  or 
to  learn  the  methods  of  other  countries,  was  the  means 
of  a  reciprocal  interchange  of  ideas,  and  brought  back 
with  him  those  which  he  assimilated.  It  is  necessary 
also  to  classify  the  artistic  output.  This  included  the 
purely  commercial  productions  under  the  authority  of 
the  guilds,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  those  of  the  artist 

53 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

freely  working  in  a  foreign  country  or  for  a  foreign 
master.  In  every  land  we  find  him  at  work.  To 
France,  and  to  Paris  especially,  the  master  imagers  of 
the  schools  of  Brabant  came  in  great  numbers,  many, 
no  doubt,  to  stay.  There  is  voluminous  documentary 
evidence  to  show  that  they  were  employed  in  the  orna- 
mentation of  churches  throughout  the  whole  country. 
It  must  suffice  simply  to  mention  Rouen,  and  the  stalls 
and  the  great  crucifix  carved  by  Mosselmen  for  the 
cathedral.  The  exportation  of  retables  to  France  was 
constant  during  two  centuries,  and  many  are  still  in 
evidence.  In  Sweden,  also,  some  of  the  finest  examples 
of  the  fifteenth  century  exist  to  this  day.  In  Italy, 
Flemish  artists  and  their  retables  were  received  with 
enthusiasm  even  in  the  days  of  the  greatest  of  the 
quattrocento  sculptors.  In  the  succeeding  century  the 
names  of  numbers  settled  in  the  country  could  be 
gathered.  The  artistic  relations  with  Spain  will  be 
considered  later  on.  Finally,  as  regards  our  own 
country,  the  relative  positions  naturally  encouraged 
commercial  relations  and  brought  about  those  of  art. 
We  imported  largely,  no  doubt,  altarpieces  and  screen- 
work.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  quote  the  case  of 
Westminster.  In  old  records,  references  to  the  em- 
ployment of  Flemish  workmen  are  frequent,  and  of 
payments  such  as  to  Hawkin  de  Li^ge,  and  the  200 
marks  '  which  the  Lord  the  King  commanded  to  be 
paid  to  him  for  making  the  tomb  of  Philippa,  Queen 
of  England.'  In  1441  there  is  mention  of  a  dispute 
between  Wm.  Cerebiss,  a  Scotch  merchant,  and  a 
monk  of  Melrose  Abbey,  acting  on  behalf  of  Corneille 
d'Aeltre,  a  master  carpenter  of  Bruges,  who  was  to 
supply  certain  stalls  for  the  abbey  after  the  fashion  of 
the  stalls  of  the  church  of  Dunis  in  Flanders.  It  is 
necessary  to  bear  in  mind  the  geographical  position  of 
the  Netherlands,  and  we  must  not  forget  the  overlap- 
ping of  frontiers — of  Holland,  France,  and  Germany — 
54 


FLANDERS 

so  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  distinguish  between 
Dutch  and  Walloon,  French  and  German.  Still,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  Walloon  is  French  in  language  and 
genius,  refined  and  inclined  to  the  ideal ;  on  the  other 
he  is  German,  more  simple,  more  patient,  more  practi- 
cal, rough  in  manner,  and  with  a  preference  for  matter 
of  fact,  that  is  to  say,  towards  realism.  On  this  side, 
too,  he  is,  at  times,  decidedly  coarse.  There  are 
among  the  misericords  of  the  fifteenth  century  certain 
examples  \vhich  the  esprit  gatdois,  even  of  that  free 
age,  would  disavow.  It  is  useful  to  remember  that  the 
Walloon  provinces  of  the  French  tongue  were  in  the 
thirteenth  century  those  of  Artois  and  Hainault — in- 
cluding Valenciennes — Cambrai,  Arras,  Lidge,  Namur, 
Brabant,  Lille,  Tournai,  and  Lorraine. 

It  is  not  proposed  to  discuss  here  at  any  length  a  very 
difficult  and  perhaps  thorny  subject.  This  is  the  tendency 
to  realism,  and  its  rise  and  evolution,  Avhich  is  so  charac- 
teristic of  the  art  of  the  Netherlands.     It  will  be  found 
strongly  marked  in  the  retables  and  single  figures  with 
which  we  shall  principally  deal,  and  without  seeking  to 
decide  on  the  origin  or  the  reciprocal  influences  which 
may  have  accompanied  its  growth,  it  may  at  once  be 
taken  that  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century  shows 
it  at  its  height.    Till  quite  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century, 
Flemish  sculpture  had  continued  to  adhere  closely  to 
the  old  traditions,  and  remained  sunk  in  a  dull  subser- 
vience to,  and  unintelligent  copying  of,  conventional 
types.     In  the  thirteenth,  Flanders  followed  almost  as 
servilely  the  culture  of  the  French  provinces,  and  so 
far  adopted  the  language  and  ideas  that  the  distinction 
between  the  sculptures  of  the  tw^o  countries  is,  as  in 
the  case  also  of  ivories,  sometimes  difficult  to  establish. 
In    that    century,    in    France,  the  ideal    in    sculpture 
was  at  the  height  of  its  refined  grace  and  charm,  and 
still    in    complete   subjection    to  the  mystical  element 
and    the  most  rigid   rules  of  ecclesiastical  discipline. 

55 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

French  fashions  and  ideas  of  all  kinds  invaded 
the  Low  Countries  with  resistless  force,  and  the 
triumph  in  sculpture  was  complete.  Of  realism, 
such  as  the  next  century  developed,  and  the  fifteenth 
carried  to  its  utmost  limits,  there  is  no  trace.  It  is  not 
to  be  inferred,  however,  that  the  Flemish  sculptor  was 
content  to  copy  from  French  models,  but  that  the 
sentiment  once  introduced  and  understood  was  eagerly 
assimilated  and  followed,  sometimes  with  national 
differences,  but  as  often  without.  Arrived  then  at  its 
height  at  the  period  when  the  apparition  of  the  brothers 
Van  Eyck,  and  of  their  school,  startled  the  world  of 
art,  it  is  hardly  surprising  that  the  part  played  by 
Flanders  in  the  introduction  of  the  new  feeling  should 
be  somewhat  exaggerated,  even  to  the  point  of  giving 
to  Flemish  artists  the  credit  of  an  absolutely  new 
invention.  We  must  by  no  means  conclude  that  the 
process  of  evolution  was  anything  more  than  slow  and 
gradual,  or  more  hurried  in  Flanders  than  in  France. 
The  word  once  given  to  go,  it  was  as  if  those  who 
practised  the  arts  had  to  submit  to  a  long  apprentice- 
ship in  an  entirely  new  system,  and  to  abandon  a  great 
deal  that  they  had  learned  under  an  antiquated  and 
now  discredited  system.  The  emancipation  from  the 
old  fetters  was  a  long  and  tedious  process.  But  liberty 
was  in  the  air,  the  cause  was  a  popular  one.  People 
learned  by  themselves  what  they  had  hitherto  accepted 
in  a  mechanical  manner.  They  began  to  understand 
how  to  make  use  of  nature  as  a  model,  and  how  to 
give  life  and  movement  to  their  figures,  a  dramatic 
element  to  the  composition.  Mighty  again  was  the 
revolution  involved  in  the  understanding  and  true  use 
of  perspective.  It  is  not  with  France  only  that  com- 
parisons are  to  be  made  in  considering  the  beginnings 
of  realism  in  the  early  days  of  the  Renaissance.  In 
the  fourteenth  century  Italy,  equally  with  Flanders, 
disputed  for  the  lead  in  the  development  of  the  arts. 

56 


FLANDERS 

Equally  to  them  both  is  due  the  signal  for  a  movement 
which  went  direct  to  nature  for  inspiration.  The  chief 
propagator  in  Germany,  Spain,  England,  and  Northern 
Europe,  was  the  untiring  Fleming. 

Nowhere  is  there  such  a  complication  of  detail, 
such  elaboration  of  ornament,  such  a  masterly  use  of 
polychromatic  decoration,  such  a  change  in  style  from 
the  sobriety  which  in  the  midst  of  its  richness  charac- 
terized the  altarpieces  of  Dijon,  as  in  the  great  retables 
of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  Striking  in 
their  perspective  arrangement,  they  are  more  pictorial 
than  pure  sculpture.  A  well-known  French  critic, 
M.  Bonnaffe,  has  said  of  this  Flemish  figure  work  that 
the  proportions  are  somewhat  squat,  that  they  lack  the 
German  realism,  French  elegance,  and  Italian  great 
manner  [gr ancle  allure).  The  assertion  is  too  sweep- 
ing :  numerous  instances  would  show  almost  the  exact 
contrary,  although  as  a  general  impression,  with  the 
exception  of  the  comparison  with  Germany,  it  has 
reason  enough  in  it.  The  figures  are  shorter  and 
blunter  than  in  similar  French  work,  the  modelling 
harder,  and  the  draperies  treated  with  an  exaggeration 
of  sharp  angular  folds  which  is  especially  distinctive  of 
the  realistic  art  of  the  late  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries.  Carried  into  Germany,  the  system,  even 
with  the  best  Franconian  masters,  became  a  perfect 
craze,  in  which  all  reason  seems  to  have  been  thrown 
to  the  winds.  There  will  be  ample  occasion  presently 
to  note  examples.  As  the  fifteenth  century  advances 
the  taste  for  realism  is  still  more  marked  in  the  details 
of  flesh  modelling  and  in  the  expressions  of  human 
passions  almost  violently  displayed.  The  sobriety  of 
the  old  conventional  form  of  garments,  founded  on 
classical  traditions,  is  discarded.  Virgins  and  martyrs, 
the  Saint  Catherines,  Magdalens,  and  Margarets  are 
presented  to  us  in  the  holiest  of  scenes  as  ladies  of 
fashion     in     the    richest    costumes :     patriarchs     and 

57 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

apostles  are  in  the  dress  of  the  period.  In  the  Nether- 
lands, perhaps  more  than  anywhere  else,  it  was  the  age 
of  wood-carving,  the  churches  filled  from  floor  to  roof 
with  sculptured  altarpieces,  screens,  and  choir  fittings, 
episcopal  thrones,  tabernacles,  and  font  covers,  carry- 
ing high  into  the  air  their  elaborately-carved  pinnacles. 
An  equal  demand  on  the  wood  sculptor  s  art  came 
also  from  the  palaces  of  the  wealthy,  and,  above  all,  so 
far  as  the  happily  preserved  existing  monuments  can 
testify,  from  the  H6tels  de  Ville  and  other  corporation 
buildings  of  the  great  cities.  Some  names  of  the 
designers  and  sculptors  of  these  great  works  we  know. 
At  Bruges,  Jean  de  Valenciennes  did  most  of  the  sculp- 
ture of  the  Town  Hall,  and  carved  in  1386  the  richly- 
vaulted  ceiling  of  the  great  Salle  des  Echevins.  One 
example  —  the  most  widely-known  perhaps  —  of  the 
monumental  decoration  so  frequently  found  in  the 
municipal  buildings,  must  suffice  for  all.  It  is  the 
great  chimney-piece  of  the  Palais  de  Justice  at  Bruges. 
An  excellent  reproduction  has  for  many  years  been 
included  in  the  collection  of  casts  in  the  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum.  It  brings  us,  of  course,  to  the  very 
end  of  the  period  to  \vhich  it  has  been  necessary  to 
restrict  this  book  :  indeed,  in  this  regard,  it  somewhat 
oversteps  our  limits.  Finished  in  1532  by  Guyot  de 
Beaugrant  and  Lancelot  Blondeel,  it  is  only  with  the 
statues,  busts,  and  other  ornament  in  carved  oak,  by 
Herman  Glosencamp,  that  we  are  particularly  con- 
cerned, but  it  would  be  impossible  to  dissociate  from 
them  the  rest  of  the  work.  A  most  admirable  feature 
is  the  harmonious  mixture  of  the  black  marble  statues 
bordered  with  alabaster  and  the  great  oak  figures. 
Spanish  taste  is  apparent  throughout,  especially  in  the 
proportions  of  the  figures,  though  the  union  of  the  two 
countries  was  not  till  some  twenty  years  later.  Still 
we  know  that  de  Beaugrant  was  in  relations  with 
Spain,  and  that  he  died  there  in  1551.     The  character 

58 


FLANDERS 

of  ornament  applied  to  luxurious  furniture  differed  not 
at  all  in  Gothic  times  from  that  already  noticed  in 
French  work.  Magnificent  examples  are  to  be  found 
in  museums,  ranging  throughout  the  three  centuries 
which  we  are  now  considering  in  their  general  aspect. 
It  is  fortunate  that  we  are  still  able  to  examine  so 
many  important  specimens,  and  in  this  way  to  supple- 
ment the  deficiency  of  examples  of  ecclesiastical  work 
resulting  from  iconoclastic  devastations.  The  history 
of  these  incidents,  indeed,  singularly  resembles  our 
own.  The  internal  troubles  of  religious  wars  from 
about  1566  to  1584  commenced  the  disasters.  It  is 
marvellous  that  anything  in  the  churches,  then,  as 
it  were,  the  museums  of  every  country,  survived  the 
outrageous  treatment  to  which  they  were  subjected. 
M.  Dehaisnes  in  his  Art  Ch^dtien  en  Flandre  tells  us, 
quoting  from  contemporary  documents,  how  the  sec- 
taries and  their  adherents  'jettent  parterre  et  brisent 
touttes  les  images,  autels,  epitaphes,  organes,  sepul- 
tures, ornements,  calices,  sacrements  et  toute  chose 
servant  au  service  de  Dieu.'  (Letter  of  Margaret  of 
Parma  to  Philippe  11.)  Churches  were  whitewashed  to 
adapt  them  to  Calvinistic  methods,  amongst  them  Notre 
Dame  of  Antwerp,  then  one  of  the  richest  temples  of 
Christendom.  But  worse  almost  was  to  come  later,  as 
in  our  own  bad  days  of  the  seventeenth  and  of  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  so  close  to  our  own 
time.  On  the  establishment  of  the  government  of 
Albert  and  Isabella,  the  restoration  of  Catholic  worship 
brought  with  it  an  immense  impulse  to  revive  its 
ancient  splendour.  It  is  the  time  of  St.  Charles 
Borromeo.  He  sends  Jesuits  to  direct  the  new  style 
of  decoration  adopted,  and  in  accordance  with  the 
Roman  ecclesiastical  style,  which  took  kindly  to  the 
rococo  and  theatrical  in  churches,  the  Jesuit  system 
in  sculpture  triumphs.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
value  to  art  in  general,  great  as  it  was,  of  Italy's  part 

59 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

in  the  Renaissance,  we  can  only  deplore  the  influence  of 
St.  Charles  Borromeo  on  church  ornament :  an  influ- 
ence which  pursues  us  to  this  day,  in  Jesuit  taste  in 
the  decoration  of  altars  and  in  statuary.  The  cult  of 
the  tawdry  is  almost  elevated  into  a  dogma.  Instead 
of  the  instructive  retable  in  carved  wood  or  stone,  of 
which  Flemish  art  provided  so  many  noble  examples, 
this  was  replaced  by  the  colonnaded  high  altar  with 
interrupted  pediment.  Rubens  is  substituted  for  the 
glorious  Primitives,  and  everywhere,  in  sanctuary  and 
nave,  on  the  altars,  in  pulpit,  and  in  the  newly  intro- 
duced confessional  boxes,  appears  the  debased  classic. 
Balusters  instead  of  panels,  twists  and  scrolls,  vases 
and  pyramids,  obtrusive  glories  amongst  impossible 
clouds,  cherubs  and  angels  of  theatrical  type,  and 
Madonnas  in  copes  and  monstrous  crowns,  take  the 
place  of  the  pathetic  figures  of  Gothic  times.  Every- 
thing seems  to  shout  at  us  and  to  glory  in  its  vul- 
garity. 


60 


CHAPTER    IV 

RETABLES  IN  FLANDERS  AND  GERMANY 

THE  genius  of  the  masters  of  wood-carving  is 
nowhere  more  admirably  displayed  than  in 
the  retables  or  altarpieces  which,  in  Flemish 
art  especially,  have  now  to  be  considered.  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  they  should  have  brought  forth 
the  highest  efforts  and  the  most  loving  care,  for,  on  the 
one  hand,  they  were  destined  to  complete  and  decorate 
the  most  holy  part  of  a  church,  on  the  other,  the  sculptor 
was  called  in  to  supply  in  many  cases  a  fitting  framework 
for  the  masterpieces  of  a  Van  Eyck,  a  Memling,  or  a  Van 
der  Weyden.  Not  always,  of  course,  was  the  carved 
work  merely  a  framing  for  the  painted  pictures.  Often, 
indeed,  the  entire  retable  is  of  wood,  a  picture  with  its 
perspective  planes  in  some  measure  correctly  disposed. 
In  size  and  variety  of  arrangement  also  there  were  many 
differences.  In  the  chapter  on  boxwoods  we  shall  come 
across  some  extraordinary  tours  de  force  of  tiny  altar- 
pieces,  if  we  may  so  term  them,  microscopically  carved. 
They  are  not,  perhaps,  strictly  retables  so  much  as  objects 
for  private  devotion.  Still  we  must  place  them  in  the 
same  category.  The  altar  and  its  surroundings  in  primi- 
tive times  was  characterized  by  an  extreme  simplicity 
and  absence  of  ornament.  It  is  sufficient  to  remember 
that  the  bishop  sat  behind  it,  in  the  apse,  to  show  that 
not  even  a  curtain  intervened,  much  less  so  solid  an 
erection  as  a  reredos.  Even  when  the  priest  took  his 
place  in   front,  and  until   quite  late  mediaeval   times, 

6i 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

there  was  nothing  on  the  altar  but  the   chalice,  the 
book,   and,   while  they  were  still  used,   the  diptychs. 
The  enclosure  of  the  choir  with   its  arrangement  of 
stalls  seems  to  have  been   approximately  coeval  with 
the  appearance  of  great  fixed  altarpieces.     The  earliest 
examples   which   we    possess   of  both    date  from    the 
thirteenth    century.     At   the   same   time,   it   is   to   be 
noticed  that  they  appear  to  be  already  of  a  settled  type 
— a  type  which  for  the  choir  stalls  has  scarcely  varied 
down    to   the   present   day  —  so   that    for    some   time 
previous  something  in  the  nature  of  an  altarpiece  may 
have  formed  a  groundwork  for  decoration.     Metal  work 
was  the  forerunner.     In  Italy  we  have  the  Pala  cToro 
of  St.  Mark's  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  goldsmith's 
and  enamel  work  was  probably  general  elsewhere,  to 
give  way  to  stone  or  wood,  more  or  less  according  to 
locality.     In  the  fourteenth  century  we  arrive  at  an  age 
when  everything  that  ingenuity  could  suggest  tended 
to  exaggerate  novel  ideas  in  architectural  arrangements 
and  the  accessories  of  church  furniture.     Men's  ideas 
were  centred   in  the  church.      It  was  the  mainspring 
whence   proceeded  all   their  interests   and   even    their 
recreations.      In   the   smallest   village   the   adornment 
of  the  church  occupied  every  mind,  and  possessing  a 
higher  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  and  a  more  general 
diffusion  of  good  taste  than  nowadays,  people  were  ever 
on  the  look-out  for  a  suggestion  of  novel  ideas  culmin- 
ating at  times  in  extravagances  for  the  mere  pleasure 
of  doing  things  in  some  startlingly  original  manner. 
The  earliest  fixed  construction  corresponding  with  the 
later  triptychs  or  polyptychs   is  the  retable  carved  in 
soft  limestone  formerly  in  the  church  of  the  Carri^re 
Saint-Denis  at   Paris  :    a  picture  in   stone  forming  a 
kind  of  screen  at  the  back  of  and  resting  on  the  altar. 
It  was  nowhere  the  custom  to  make  the  altar  a  fixture 
against  the  east  wall.     There  was  a  space  between,  and 
the  early  retable  served  to  support  and  conceal  a  large 
62 


RETABLES 

reliquary  over  the  ambulatory.  A  tabernacle  on  the 
altar  itself  has,  at  most,  the  authority  of  the  last  three 
centuries.  Two  lights  or  even  one  sufficed,  nor  was  it  the 
custom  to  place  flower-vases,  candlesticks,  reliquaries, 
or  other  ornaments  upon  the  holy  table.  Even  the  book 
and  its  cushion  were  brought  and  taken  away  by  the 
acolyte  as  they  are,  or  should  be,  now.  As,  then, 
innovations  succeeded  each  other,  the  retable  became 
an  adjunct  upon  which  the  utmost  skill  of  architect  and 
sculptor  was  lavished.  It  attained  the  proportions  of 
a  towering  edifice,  with  pinnacles  covered  with  every 
description  of  architectural  device,  with  niches  and 
statuary,  pendentives,  canopies,  and  tracery  of  all  kinds, 
soaring  up  to  the  roof  of  the  building. 

The  German  retables  are  distinguished  by  their  fanci- 
ful construction  and  the  lengths  to  which  the  system  was 
carried,  and  in  Spain  the  development  was  still  greater. 
Our  present  interest  is  with  the  smaller  variety,  of  wood, 
either  decorative  or  pictorial  work  in  themselves,  or 
forming  in  addition  a  framing  for  paintings.  A  Flemish 
retable  of  this  description  consists  usually  of  a  triptych 
formed  by  a  central  portion  with  a  movable  wing  on 
either  side,  hinged  so  as  to  fold  in  on  the  centre  when 
required.  Sometimes  the  wings  themselves  are  sub- 
divided. Every  portion  is  lavishly  carved  with  scenes 
and  figures  in  relief.  The  central  panels  naturally 
present  the  principal  scene,  often  with  innumerable 
figures  in  full  relief  and  in  a  landscape  perspective, 
crowned  and  surrounded  by  every  description  of  archi- 
tectural ornament.  Thus  we  have,  in  astonishing  abund- 
ance, arabesques  of  foliage,  fruit  and  flowers,  statuettes, 
pendentives,  pilasters,  groinings,  corbels,  culs-de-lampe, 
crestings,  canopies,  niches,  lace  work  ;  in  short,  speaking 
of  the  framework  only,  every  conceivable  detail  and 
architectural  device  on  a  small  scale  which  monumental 
sculpture  in  stone  presented  on  a  larger  one. 

There    are    characteristic    differences    between    the 

63 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Flemish  and  German  systems.  That  is  to  say,  taking 
them  as  a  whole,  for  the  geographical  positions  of 
the  two  countries  and  their  artistic  relations  naturally 
prepare  us  to  find  similarities  of  general  style.  In 
the  one,  so  far  as  it  is  distinctly  German,  we  have, 
for  example,  the  upper  part  of  the  work  ornamented 
with  a  range  of  floral  crestings ;  the  Flemish  is  plain. 
Canopies  without  supporting  columns  are  more  usual 
with  the  latter,  and  we  do  not  find  here  such  common- 
place features  as  the  veil  of  open-worked  thorny  twigs 
and  branches,  the  too  realistic  vegetation,  and  such 
fantastic  caprices  as  the  tops  of  the  pinnacles  curled 
round  like  the  volute  of  a  crosier.  There  is,  in  the 
German  work,  too  much  which  would  be  more  appro- 
priate in  wrought-iron.  These  features,  however,  need 
not  be  insisted  upon,  because  our  limitations  confine  us 
more  particularly  to  the  figure  sculpture,  and  general 
observations  without  numerous  illustrations  would  be 
liable  to  be  misunderstood.  As  a  rule,  the  Flemish 
retables  of  the  fifteenth  century  are  evidences  of  the 
perfection  of  skill  attained  by  the  wood-carver  in  the 
declining  years  of  Gothic  feeling,  and  of  conscientious 
work,  with  as  much  sobriety  as  the  prevailing  taste  for 
exuberance  of  detail  permitted.  When,  however,  we 
are  inclined  to  criticize  them,  as  we  find  them  now, 
under  glass  in  a  museum,  or  in  a  church  with  altered 
surroundings,  we  must  not  forget  the  positions  which 
they  were  created  to  occupy.  This  was  not  under  the 
garish  light  of  a  modern  gallery,  but  in  the  soft 
obscurity,  perhaps,  of  a  guild  or  convent  chapel, 
discreetly  lighted  by  windows  of  painted  glass  pro- 
portioned to  its  size,  or  by  the  dim  oil  lamps  and 
tapers  of  its  altar  and  shrines.  So  many  retables 
contain  paintings  of  the  great  masters,  above  all  by 
the  French  and  Flemish  primitives  of  the  same  date 
as  the  sculptures,  that  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  painter  had  more  than  a  little  to  say  with  regard  to 

64 


THE    FLEMISH    PRIMITIVES 

their  general  character,  if  indeed  he  was  not  responsible 
in  many  cases  for  the  design,  and  at  times,  for  the 
execution  also.  It  is  impossible  to  examine  them, 
and  the  work  later  on  of  the  Franconian,  Suabian, 
and  Bavarian  schools,  not  to  speak  of  those  more 
immediately  connected  with  Flanders,  without  seeing 
the  indebtedness  to,  and  absolute  copying  from,  the 
masters  of  painting,  whether  directly  or  through  the 
medium  of  the  engravers.  The  Creglingen  altarpiece 
and  innumerable  others  have  their  models  in,  for 
example,  the  paintings  on  the  wings  of  the  well-known 
altarpiece,  the  'Adoration  of  the  Lamb.'  These  things 
are  but  the  attempt  at  a  translation  into  another 
medium  of  the  masterpieces  of  a  Van  Eyck,  of  a 
Rogier  de  la  Pasture,  or  of  the  Cologne  artists,  by 
whom  even  Van  Eyck  was  inspired.  The  influence 
of  these  men  invaded  everything,  and  we  find  their 
formulae  everywhere  the  example  to  be  followed.  What 
else  are  such  details  as  the  long  wavy  curls  in  separate 
strands  of  Riemenschneider's  Magdalen,  of  the  Madonna 
of  Brussels  workmanship  in  the  Bossy  collection  of  the 
Louvre,  or  that  charming  fragment  of  a  Virgin  and 
Child  statuette  in  the  Cluny  Museum,  also  of  the 
Brussels  schools,  which  with  others  we  shall  notice 
in  a  succeeding  chapter?  Or  again,  the  drapery,  broken 
up  into  an  infinite  complication  of  angular  folds,  upon 
which  the  German  wood-carvers  brought  to  bear  their 
own  developments  in  treatment  ?  The  question  of  the 
participation  of  Roger  Van  der  Weyden,  and  of  other 
great  painters  as  sculptors,  is  not  one  that  can  be 
discussed  here.  It  is  still  unsettled.  M.  Maeterlinck, 
in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts  for  1901,  has  devoted 
a  long  study  to  it,  and  seems  to  bring  at  least  prima 
facie  evidence  that  Roger,  before  his  apprenticeship  as  a 
painter,  had  worked  the  chisel  of  the  imager.  Nothing 
is  more  likely  and  more  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of 
the  times.  Yet  we  know  little  of  his  history  and  early 
E  65 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

life  beyond  the  fact  that  he  was  born  at  Tournai  about 
the  year  1400.  Tournai  had  long  been  celebrated  for 
important  schools  of  sculpture,  and  had  exported  far  and 
wide  its  productions  and  artists — in  earlier  times,  for 
instance,  its  black  fonts  to  England — and  at  the  end  of 
the  fourteenth  century  it  held  the  foremost  position  in 
the  art  which  Brussels  and  Antwerp  wrested  from  it  in 
the  following  century.  From  the  little  more  of  which 
there  appears  to  be  some  documentary  evidence,  we  may 
gather  that  Roger's  master,  Robert  Campin,  was  a 
sculptor  as  well  as  painter.  M.  Maeterlinck  concludes 
that  it  is  certain  that  Van  der  Weyden  often  painted 
statues  and  retables,  and,  if  the  great  carved  retable 
of  Ambierle,  which  has  been  attributed  to  him,  is  not  by 
his  hand,  there  would  appear  to  be  evidence  not  only 
from  style,  but  documentary,  that  he  is  responsible 
at  least  for  the  painting  of  the  sculpture,  and  for  that 
of  a  number  of  other  famous  retables.  Amongst  these, 
for  example,  may  be  placed  that  of  the  Comte  de  Nahuys, 
and  one  which  is  perhaps  the  finest  of  all  Flemish 
examples,  the  retable  of  Claude  de  Villa  in  the  museum 
at  Brussels.  (See  E.  Jeannez,  Le  retable  d' Ambierle 
en  Rotmiais,  in  Gaz.  archdoL,  1886.)  It  is  interesting 
to  note  that  Waagen,  many  years  ago,  was  already 
persuaded  of  the  influence  which  the  Tournaisian 
schools  exercised  not  only  on  sculpture  but  even  on 
the  great  Flemish  painters.  In  the  present  state  of 
the  question,  it  is  remarkable  that  this  far-seeing  critic 
should  have  expressed  his  opinion  that  *  in  the  same 
way  that  the  most  famous  painters  of  the  Roman  and 
Tuscan  schools  studied  the  great  gates  of  Ghiberti 
of  the  Baptistery  at  Florence,  so  also  the  brothers 
Van  Eyck  and  Roger  van  der  Weyden  of  Bruges  were 
inspired  by  the  sculptors  of  Tournai.'  (Messager  des 
Sciences  et  des  Arts,  vol.  ii.) 

In  Gothic  times  the  practice  was  universal  of  paint- 
ing and  gilding  sculpture  of  all  kinds  in  stone,  wood, 
66 


GERMAN    RETABLES 

ivory,  and  even  metal.  There  seems  to  have  been  an 
absolute  dislike  for  monochrome,  which  appeared  to  be 
incomplete  without  the  aid  of  the  painter  to  give  it  the 
finishing  touches.  Frequently,  no  doubt,  painter  and 
sculptor  were  the  same  individual.  As  the  subject  will 
be  treated  at  greater  length  in  a  succeeding  chapter,  it 
need  only  be  said  here,  that  although  such  a  striking 
work  as  the  great  Flemish  altarpiece  at  South  Kensing- 
ton is  now  uncoloured,  and  perhaps  may  never  have 
been  intended  to  be  otherwise,  yet  other  marvellously 
fine  pieces  of  the  same  character,  such  as  the  retable  of 
Oplinter  in  the  museum  at  Brussels,  were  fully  coloured 
and  gilded.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  painter 
and  sculptor  worked  together.  It  was  from  her  Flemish 
neighbours  that  Germany  received  the  first  impulse 
towards  realism,  and  when  we  come  to  consider  pre- 
sently some  of  the  most  striking  examples  amongst 
the  mass  of  German  altarpieces  of  the  fifteenth  and 
early  sixteenth  centuries,  the  evidence  of  their  indebted- 
ness to  Flemish  art  will  be  manifest.  In  the  treatment 
of  the  subjects,  and  especially  in  the  mannerism  of  the 
drapery,  the  inspiration  is  from  the  great  masters  of 
painting  rather  than  through  the  medium  of  the  carved 
retables.  Generally  speaking,  and  especially  in  the 
work  of  the  more  southern  provinces,  the  German 
retables  give  an  impression  of  an  arrangement  among 
decorative  surroundings  of  a  number  of  detached 
figures  or  statuettes  :  almost  doll-like,  and  in  the  worst 
cases  suggesting  a  puppet  show.  In  the  case  of  the 
Flemish,  and  in  the  north  German  work,  influenced 
by  the  proximity  of  her  neighbour,  we  have  a  more 
pictorial,  more  lifelike  representation  of  the  scenes  and 
characters ;  the  perspective  is  studied,  the  picture  is 
complete,  instead  of  being  formed  by  isolated  figures. 
The  Flemish  treatment  is  more  refined,  more  suggestive 
of  the  active  collaboration  of  the  painter  with  the 
sculptor.     The  German,  even  in  such  a  typical  example 

67 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

as  Michael  Pacher's  altarpiece  at  St.  Wolfgang,  ex- 
pends himself  in  a  profusion  of  details,  for  ever  adding 
independent  elements,  and  elaborating  the  ornament 
till  not  an  unoccupied  space  remains.  Taken  singly, 
individual  figures  in  the  retable  just  mentioned  are 
admirable.  Their  grouping  is  almost  fortuitous,  as  of 
an  assemblage  which  might  have  been  collected  from 
various  quarters.  Yet  Pacher  was  painter  as  well  as 
sculptor. 

It  must  be  admitted,  also,  that  in  the  case  of  some 
altarpieces,  both  Flemish  as  well  as  German,  the  toy- 
stage-like  effect  is  not  wholly  absent.  The  composition 
is  divided  into  a  number  of  compartments  or  separate 
stages,  peopled  with  little  figures  playing  their  parts  in 
some  sacred  drama.  It  is  the  representation,  on  a 
small  scale,  of  a  mystery-play,  and,  indeed,  from  these 
entertainments,  so  popular  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
idea  may  have  proceeded.  It  is  still  continued  in  the 
*  Cribs '  which  it  is  customary  to  erect  in  so  many 
Catholic  churches  at  Christmas  time.  Even  in  the 
best  examples  of  the  retables  the  scenic  illusion  is 
unavoidably  present.  The  stage  itself  is  sloped,  so 
that  the  figures  which  occupy  the  hinder  planes  may 
be  plainly  visible,  and  there  is  frequently  no  difference 
in  their  respective  proportions  wherever  they  may  be 
placed.  There  is  an  attempt  at  producing  within  a 
constricted  area  the  effect  of  greater  space  for  the  action 
of  the  piece  than  is  really  the  case.  The  groups  and 
details  of  the  landscape  stand  out  with  startling 
stereoscopic-like  sharpness.  The  dramatic  movement 
is  so  striking,  and  the  resemblance  to  a  piece  in  action 
so  great,  that  one  almost  expects  to  find  wings  or  side 
scenes  from  which  other  characters  in  the  drama  will 
presently  emerge  and  play  their  parts  upon  the  stage. 
At  the  same  time  one  must  not  forget  the  evident 
relationship  between  these  carvings  and  the  storied 
panels  of  the  diptychs  and  triptychs,  caskets  and 
68 


CORPORATION    MARKS 

mirror-cases  which,  with  less  advanced  ideas  of  per- 
spective, delii^hted  our  mediaeval  forefathers. 

In  about  the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth  century 
wood-carving  was  in  a  highly  flourishing  condition 
in  the  province  of  Brabant,  notably  in  the  towns  of 
Brussels  and  Antwerp.  Reference  has  already  been 
made  to  the  organization  of  the  guilds  which  were 
universal  at  this  period,  and  nowhere  ruled  with  greater 
strictness  than  in  the  Low  Countries.  At  Brussels  and 
at  Malines  the  wood-carvers  seem  to  have  belonged  to 
the  guild  of  the  Oiiattwr  Coronati,  the  stone  sculptors 
and  other  allied  crafts  forming  a  separate  corporation 
under  the  invocation  of  St.  Claude  and  his  four 
fellow-martyrs.  Before  wood-carvings  could  be  placed 
on  the  market  they  had  to  satisfy  a  jury  that  they 
were  made  of  properly  seasoned  oak  or  walnut  and  of 
the  proper  thickness.  This  examination  satisfactorily 
passed,  a  mark  was  impressed  on  the  piece,  which 
seems,  as  a  rule,  to  have  borne  some  relation  to  the 
arms  of  the  town.  According  to  M.  Destree,  who  is 
our  principal  authority,  the  mark  of  an  open  hand  or 
a  castle  belonged  to  Antwerp,  and  especially  to  the 
guild  of  huchiers  charged  with  the  marking  of  retables. 
The  mark  for  Brussels,  for  polychromed  work,  was 
BRVESEL  in  Gothic  characters  enclosed  in  a  rectangle. 
Another  corporation  mark  of  Brussels  is  a  mallet ;  and 
a  shell,  a  fleur-de-lis,  a  compass  and  a  kind  of  comb 
with  four  teeth,  would  seem  to  be  those  of  the  sculptors. 
But  the  whole  subject  of  marks  is  somewhat  involved 
and  awaits  further  investigation,  and  careful  examina- 
tion of  examples  in  various  museums.  Unfortunately 
these  indications  are  not,  in  general,  easy  to  discover, 
hidden  away,  as  they  often  are,  in  the  most  out-of-the- 
way  corners.  They  are  none  the  less  important,  for  even 
if  we  are  unable  in  many  cases  to  name  the  actual  carver 
of  a  retable  or  other  piece  of  sculpture,  we  may  at  least 
be  certain  of  the  school  to  which  he  belonged.     Every 

69 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

craft  was  necessarily  connected  with  a  guild,  and  thus 
the  work  issued  from  a  particular  source,  and  stamped 
with  its  mark,  was  bound  to  have  a  family  resemblance. 
No  doubt  there  was  more  personality  in  the  details  of 
work  in  mediaeval  times,  in  which  more  than  one  artist 
had  a  share,  than  there  is  in  our  own  day.  Still,  there 
were  probably  commercial  workshops,  or,  as  we  should 
say,  carving  works.  Except  for  their  independence, 
our  modern  system  would  not  show^  much  difference. 
For  example,  a  considerable  quantity  of  screen  and 
other  wood-carving,  not  excepting  figure  sculpture,  for 
the  use  of  churches,  has  now  for  some  years  been 
executed  at  Exeter,  and  there  are  at  least  two  principal 
firms.  The  productions  of  each  house  are  not  so  diffi- 
cult to  distinguish.  On  the  other  hand  we  hear,  for 
instance,  that  this  or  that  screen,  or  pulpit,  or  bench 
end,  or  figure,  has  been  carried  out  by  Messrs.  so-and- 
so.  But  of  the  identity  or  celebrity  of  the  actual  designer 
or  carver  we  know^  nothing. 

The  mallet  corporation  mark  of  Brussels  is  found, 
amongst  other  examples,  on  a  St.  Michael,  and  on  a 
Madonna  group  in  the  Louvre,  and  on  Jan  Borreman's 
retable  of  St.  George  in  the  museum  of  industrial 
arts  at  Brussels.  We  shall  come  across  Borre- 
man — or  Borman — again  in  a  succeeding  chapter. 
He  and  his  son  Pascal  or  Passier  were  among  the 
greatest  and  most  prolific  Brabant  sculptors  of  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  great  retable  with 
the  story  of  the  Maccabees  in  the  Brussels  Museum  is 
by  the  elder  man,  and  is  marked  with  the  mallet  and 
compass.  His  retables  are  especially  free  from  the 
faults  which  were  just  now  indicated.  The  figures  are 
not  suggestive  of  puppets,  the  planes  are  correctly 
disposed,  the  perspective  excellent :  the  architectural 
features,  in  which  the  influence  of  the  Renaissance  is 
apparent,  are  free  from  the  fantastic  exuberance  of 
ornament  frequently  found  elsewhere.  The  compass 
70 


PLATE  /r 


AI.'IAkl'IlCl-..     II.K.MISH.      II|-|1  l-.\  I  II    MAIIKN 

.11    l.'kIA    AXIl    AI.IIEKT    MIMU M 
CAOR    71 


FLEMISH    RE TABLES 

seems,  for  example  on  the  retable  of  Claude  de  Villa,  to 
be  a  mark  of  the  screemaer/cers  gentrsdly,  who  worked  in 
concert  with  the  image  makers.  To  them  was  allotted 
the  part  of  carrying  out  the  general  architectural  forms. 
Then  came  the  turn  of  the  composer  of  the  picture, 
the  sculptor  of  the  figures,  and  the  painter  and  gilder. 
An  interesting  document  exists  among  the  archives  of 
Louvain,  in  which  Jan  Borreman  agrees  to  execute 
by  his  own  hand  all  the  figures  of  a  certain  piece  of 
sculpture  to  be  made  by  the  screenwerker  Petercels. 

Our  national  museum  at  Kensington  acquired  so  long 
ago  as  1855  an  extremely  fine  specimen  of  an  altarpiece 
of  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  is  of  con- 
siderable dimensions,  uncoloured — in  its  present  condi- 
tion at  least — and,  of  course,  of  oak.  The  illustration 
here  given  will  obviate  the  necessity  of  more  than  a  brief 
description  (Plate  iv.).  The  general  formation,  with  a 
central  panel  and  two  wings  is  much  the  same  as  in  many 
others  of  the  style  and  period,  but  plainer  and  not  so 
rich  in  ornament.  The  figures  of  the  apostles,  now 
placed  upon  it,  may  or  may  not  have  been  originally 
connected  with  it.  The  principal  subject  represents 
the  death  of  the  Virgin  :  on  the  wings  are  the  Nativity 
and  the  Visit  of  the  Magi.  We  may  remark  that  the 
character  of  the  drapery  is  excessively  toMrnientd  in  the 
multiplicity  and  the  arrangement  of  the  folds.  The 
piece  is  said  to  have  come  from  the  cathedral  of  St. 
Bavon  at  Ghent.  It  would  be  interesting  if  we  could 
verify  this  origin.  The  fine  retable,  formerly  in  the 
church  at  Anderghem,  and  now  in  the  Brussels  Museum, 
is  a  good  example  of  the  coloured  and  profusely  gilded 
Flemish  flamboyant  style  of  mid-fifteenth  century. 
Within  a  moderate  compass  the  groups  of  figures  form 
a  living  composition,  each  in  its  way  superior  to 
more  realistic  work,  as,  for  example,  in  the  choir  at 
Ulm.  Naturally,  Belgium  and  the  museums  of  the 
chief  city  of  the  modern  state  are  rich  in  specimens. 

71 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

In  the  Muse6  du  Cinquantenaire  are  some  superb 
examples,  which  alone  are  sufficient  to  illustrate  the 
subject  at  its  best.  These  are  the  retables  of  Haeken- 
dover,  of  the  Cte.  de  Nahuys,  and  above  all  that  known 
as  the  retable  of  Claude  de  Villa.  The  first-named  is 
an  instructive  example  of  the  preservation  of  types,  for 
though,  without  doubt,  work  of  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century — perhaps  by  Maitre  Devis  or  Jan  van  Connix- 
loo — the  costumes  and  architectural  style  are  of  a 
century  earlier,  carrying  us  back  to  the  formulae  of 
Jacques  de  Baerze  at  Dijon.  The  retable  of  Claude  de 
Villa  (Plate  v.)  is  a  triptych,  with  each  compartment 
crowned  by  an  architectural  decoration  of  ogival  arches, 
the  points  of  which  at  one  time  may  have  carried 
statuettes  of  which  the  culs-de-lanipe  now  only  remain. 
The  rest  of  the  tabernacle  work  is  a  mass  of  delicate 
tracery,  lacelike  in  complication,  yet  of  extreme  light- 
ness. In  the  centre  is  the  principal  subject,  the 
Crucifixion.  Allowing  for  some  differences,  and  for 
more  or  less  detail,  this  is  the  type  of  the  pictorial 
compositions  which  are  general  in  this  class  of 
altarpiece,  and  may  be  thus  described :  In  a  land- 
scape a  mountain  of  figures — men,  women,  soldiers 
on  horse  and  on  foot,  the  crowd  of  sightseers, 
officials  and  legendary  figures  that  we  associate  always 
with  the  sacred  scene — leads  up  to  the  extremely  tall 
and  narrow-limbed  cross.  On  either  side  of  this,  on 
similar  crosses,  are  bound  the  thieves,  contorted  in 
agony.  With  the  exception  of  the  most  holy  personages, 
all  the  figures  are  in  the  costume  of  the  period,  that  is, 
of  the  last  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  date  of 
the  work  itself  being  about  1460  to  1470.  The  patrician 
ladies  of  the  crowd,  and  even  some  of  those  whose 
names  the  scriptural  narrative  and  legends  attach  to 
the  sacred  event,  are  in  the  richest  robes  of  brocade  and 
tissue  of  the  latest  and  most  extravagant  fashion : 
ddcolletdes  and  decked  with  chains  and  jewels.  Amongst 
72 


PLATE    V 


KKJABLK   OK    CLAUDE   DE   VILLA.     FLEMISH.     FI  !•  I  Kl  N  1  M    CFNTURY 

BRTSSELS   ML'SBLM 
I'AC.E    72 


RETABLE    OF    CLAUDE    DE   VILLA 

them  are  the  noble  donor  and  his  wife.  They  kneel 
each  at  a  draped  prie-dieu,  on  which  are  their  books  of 
devotion,  he  in  full  plate-armour,  with  by  his  side  his 
helmet  with  the  mantling,  surmounted  by  the  family 
crest — a  horse's  head — on  the  usual  fillet :  she  in  a 
simple  dress  of  the  period  and  wearing  the  hennin,  the 
steeple-shaped  headdress  of  ladies  of  quality.  In  the 
wings,  of  which  two  remain,  are,  beneath  similar  rich 
tabernacle  work,  other  scenes  in  the  Passion — the  Last 
Supper  with  the  Magdalen  washing  the  feet,  the  raising 
of  Lazarus,  the  Deposition  and  the  Resurrection.  In  the 
last  scene  the  type  of  the  angel  at  the  tomb  seems  to 
carry  us  back  to  models  and  the  feeling  of  two  cen- 
turies earlier. 

There  can,  of  course,  be  no  question  of  further 
insisting,  in  relation  to  compositions  of  this  kind, 
on  the  connexion  with  the  great  Flemish  schools 
of  painting,  with  which  they  are  contemporary.  Every 
one  may  determine  for  himself  to  which  well-known 
masterpiece  this  or  that  work  is  mostly  related,  and 
how  much  it  has  directly  borrowed  from  it  or  from 
others.  It  is  thought  that  the  retable  of  Claude  de 
Villa  possessed  at  one  time  additional  wings,  painted, 
perhaps,  by  Van  der  Weyden.  What  w^as  his  part  in 
the  sculptured  composition?  Did  he,  perhaps,  furnish 
the  design  ?  However  it  may  be,  nothing  can  detract 
from  the  skill  of  the  sculptor  who,  himself  perhaps  also 
the  draughtsman,  translated  his  design  with  all  its 
sentiment  and  colour  into  sculptural  forms.  The  history 
of  the  important  piece  just  described  is  known.  It  was 
made  to  the  order  of  a  noble  Piedmontese  family,  the  head 
of  which,  Claude  de  Villa,  had  perhaps  official  relations 
with  Brussels.  We  have,  in  this  circumstance,  an 
interesting  example  of  the  high  reputation  which 
Flemish  work  enjoyed  in  Italy  at  such  an  important 
period  of  Italian  art  when  so  many  great  names  were 
preparing  to  dazzle  the  world.     Most  touching  is  the 

73 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

treatment  of  the  scenes  of  the  Passion  that  we  find  in 
this  and  so  many  other  similar  works  of  the  period.  It 
is  unnecessary  to  refer  to  them  in  detail,  or  from  this 
point  of  view  to  make  comparisons  with  the  paintings. 
Often,  as  here,  the  pious  founder  is  to  be  seen  with 
his  wife,  kneeling  with  clasped,  uplifted  hands,  he 
in  warlike  attire,  she  with  long,  trailing  robe  and  the 
Jiemiin  headdress  with  its  flapping  wings  and  long 
veil  falling  from  the  point  :  forming,  as  it  were, 
part  of  the  composition,  and  yet  addressing  them- 
selves in  prayer  to  the  central  figure.  Here,  as  more 
commonly,  perhaps,  a  favourite  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject in  Flemish  art  than  elsewhere,  the  blessed  Virgin 
is  supported  fainting  in  the  arms  of  St.  John  and  the 
holy  women.  As  we  look  to-day  at  the  method  of  pic- 
turing these  sacred  scenes  there  seems  to  be  nothing 
incongruous  in  a  Magdalen  at  the  foot  of  the  cross 
attired  in  a  rich  ddcollet^e  costume  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
of  other  women  in  hennin  or  turban-like  headdresses,  in 
the  dresses  of  the  chief  priests  and  officials,  the  arms 
and  accoutrements  of  the  soldiers  and  their  sturdy 
Flemish  horses.  It  is  the  poetry  and  piety  of  the  last 
days  of  Gothic  times  combined,  before  the  completed 
Renaissance  of  the  sixteenth  century  made  the  cultiva- 
tion of  religious  art  more  exclusively  the  property  of 
the  rich,  and  we  may  be  grateful  that  we  owe  to  the  art 
of  wood-carving  an  expression  of  sentiment  which  in 
talent  of  execution  reached  a  height  in  its  way  compar- 
able with  that  of  the  masters  of  painting. 


?  i  (^ 


74 


CHAPTER   V 

WOOD  SCULPTURE  IN  GERMANY  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH 
AND  EARLY  SIXTEENTH  CENTURIES 

THE  flourishing  period  of  German  art  in  wood- 
carving  extends  from  about  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth,  to  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth,  centuries. 
If,  during  this  period,  it  cannot  be  said  thatGermany  took 
the  lead,  at  any  rate  it  was  conspicuously  in  the  fore- 
front, and  the  output  of  figure  work  for  the  adornment 
of  altarpieces  and  shrines,  for  choirs  and  choir-stalls, 
was  nothing  less  than  prodigious.  But  the  extent  of  the 
empire  was  great,  and  we  have  to  consider  the  reciprocal 
influences  exercised  on  its  various  constituent  parts,  its 
commercial  position  on  the  main  route  between  the  Alps 
and  the  north,  between  Venice  and  the  Flemish  and 
Dutch  capitals  ;  on  the  other  hand,  internal  conditions 
of  government,  the  absence  of  centralization,  the  exist- 
ence of  several  Free  towns,  and  the  restricted  means  of 
communication  between  the  provinces,  making,  for 
example.  Saxony  and  Thuringia  dependent  on  Franco- 
nian  schools  of  art — all  these  things  combining  to 
produce  a  complication  so  diverse  that  it  is  impossible 
to  treat  the  subject  comprehensively  as  a  whole  within 
reasonable  limits.  Nor  can  we  forget  also  that  the 
period  with  which  we  shall  be  most  concerned  is  pre- 
cisely the  one  when  there  was  almost  a  general  upheaval 
in  everything  connected  with  the  arts,  resulting  partly 
from  the  advancing  religious  changes,  but  above  all 
from  the  strides  which  the  principles  of  the  Renaissance 

75 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

were  making.  It  is  true  that  Germany  remained  stead- 
fastly faithful  to  Gothic  ideas  until  close  on  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  and  resisted  the  Italian  invasion 
longer  than  other  countries.  All  art  continued  to  be 
exclusively  religious.  Even  when  the  enthusiasm  for 
antique  styles  had  established  itself  in  the  German 
Renaissance,  still,  more  than  with  other  peoples,  Gothic 
methods  of  treatment,  in  the  ornament  derived  from 
natural  forms,  predominated.  The  ideas  of  the  transi- 
tional period  found  in  Germany  a  favourable  soil  for 
their  development.  Gothic  here,  modern  framing  there, 
with  old  models  revived  and  adapted,  we  find  greater 
independence  in  the  design  and  construction  of  separate 
ornaments,  less  subordination  to  the  general  architec- 
tural motive,  more  freedom  and  an  increased  intelligence 
of  the  individual  artist  resulting  from  the  extensive 
travels  in  other  countries  which  were  the  rule  in  his 
wander-years,  before  he  set  up  for  himself  with  the 
grade  of  master.  Remains  of  earlier  art  in  wood  are, 
as  elsewhere,  scarce.  There  are  a  few — for  example  the 
doors  of  St.  Maria  im  Kapitol  at  Cologne — but  we  shall 
not  stay  to  consider  these.  There  are  also  a  certain 
number  of  twelfth-century  Madonna  figures  and  colossal 
crucifixes  which  may  find  brief  mention  in  the  section 
devoted  to  early  figure  work  of  this  kind.  And  certainly, 
if  in  wood  we  can  advance  absolutely  nothing  to  form  a 
link  between  this  archaic  figure  work  and  the  newly 
awakened  realism  which  characterizes  the  prolific  period 
of  the  decline  of  Gothic  ideas,  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  great  cathedrals  of 
Bamberg,  of  Naumberg,  and  of  Strassburg,  were  adorned 
with  statuary  which  vied  with,  even  if  it  were  derived 
from,  that  of  Chartres  or  of  Reims.  The  earliest  impulse 
towards  naturalism  in  German  wood-carving  was  un- 
doubtedly from  the  Netherlands.  Reaching  first  the 
neighbouring  provinces,  the  new  system  spread  rapidly 
throughout  the  empire,  and  in  those  more  distant  from 

76 


IN    GERMANY 

its  source  would  seem  to  have  been  adopted  with  more 
freedom  than  in  the  north-west,  where  we  find  very 
numerous  importations  of  the  most  imposing  of  Flemish 
retables  and  the  like.  Indeed,  these  are  more  numer- 
ously represented  in  North  Germany  and  in  Sweden  at 
the  present  day  than  in  their  country  of  origin.  We 
shall  be  particularly  occupied  with  the  retables  and  the 
single  figures  made  to  adorn  them,  of  that  part  of  the 
empire  in  the  district  of  the  Upper  Rhine  comprising 
the  Franconian  and  Suabian  schools.  There  will  be 
found,  of  course,  a  general  character  which,  while 
strongly  allied  to  that  of  Flanders  from  which  it 
sprung,  possesses  its  own  distinctive,  absolutely 
German  type.  The  faces  of  the  women  are  rounder 
and  more  of  a  simple  peasant  order,  those  of  the  men 
bony,  haggard,  and  ascetic  in  the  case  of  the  older 
ones ;  the  hands  have  peculiarly  long  and  knotted 
fingers  ;  the  hair  of  the  men  is  of  a  uniformly  adopted 
fashion  of  masses  of  thick  curls,  so  uniform  as  to  become 
monotonous.  The  draperies,  especially  towards  the  end 
of  the  period  in  question,  carry  to  the  utmost  extrava- 
gance the  complications  and  angularities  of  folds, 
breaking  up  into  innumerable  crooked  tucks  and 
pleats,  which,  far  from  being  suggestive  of  reality, 
present,  on  the  contrary,  an  appearance  unlike  anything 
which  ordinary  stuffs  could  assume.  The  inclination 
towards  naturalism  becomes  more  and  more  pronounced 
until  it  develops  into  attempts  at  reproducing  realities 
in  the  human  form,  regardless  of  beauty  for  its  own  sake, 
w^hich  are  almost  revolting.  It  is  the  cult  of  the  ugly, 
which,  from  time  to  time  in  all  arts  and  in  all  periods, 
seems  to  exercise  such  a  strange  fascination.  It  will  be 
necessary  to  confine  our  attention  almost  entirely  to  the 
most  important  of  the  two  great  districts  or  groups, 
which  may  be  distinguished  roughly  as  North  German, 
with  the  Lower  Rhenish  provinces  around  the  centre  of 
the  wood-carving  industry  at   Calcar,   and  the  South 

77 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

German,  with  which  are  associated  the  Franconian  and 
Suabian  schools  and  their  far-spreading  spheres  of 
influence.  In  the  South  German  area,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  sway  still  held  elsewhere  by  painting  over 
the  plastic  arts,  it  will  be  found  that  sculpture  took  the 
lead  and  imposed  its  influence,  whether  for  good  or 
bad,  upon  the  art  of  the  painter. 

It  would  not  be  possible,  in  a  work  of  a  general 
character,  to  examine  minutely  the  differences  which 
may  exist  in  the  character  of  German  wood  sculpture 
throughout  the  various  divisions  of  the  empire.  To 
do  so  v/ould  involve  a  study  of  German  art  not  only 
in  sculpture  generally,  but  also  in  painting;  a  con- 
sideration of  the  various  influences  at  work  during  the 
period  of  less  than  a  century,  with  which  we  shall 
principally  deal,  and  these  also  with  relation  to  their 
evolution  in  previous  times.  As  already  remarked,  the 
quantity  of  wood-carving  still  existing  in  the  shape  of 
retables  and  single  figures,  in  addition  to  decorative 
panel  and  architectural  work  for  the  adornment  and 
accessories  of  choirs,  is  prodigious.  Museums  and 
every  village  church  possess  examples  of  altarpieces 
and  statuary.  But  although  so  numerous,  these  adorn- 
ments of  the  altar,  as  we  find  them  in  the  churches,  are 
by  no  means  universally  of  a  high  artistic  character  or 
of  more  than  local  interest.  As,  then,  we  are  not 
engaged  in  a  general  study  of  the  art  of  the  empire,  or 
even  proposing  to  attempt  a  comprehensive  account  of 
its  sculpture  in  wood,  our  attention  will  be  confined  to 
a  certain  number  of  examples,  for  the  most  part  selected 
from  the  second  of  the  two  great  districts  or  groups 
before  mentioned.  In  general  it  will  be  sufficiently 
accurate  to  assume  that  during  the  period  in  question — 
that  is,  roughly  speaking,  from  the  first  half  of  the 
fifteenth  to  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth  centuries — 
the  character  of  the  retable  art  and  of  its  accompanying 
figures  has  a  generic  similarity  throughout  the  empire. 

78 


GERMANY 

A  marked  characteristic  is  the  indebtedness  to  the  art 
of  the  Netherlands,  to  the  great  masters  of  painting  of 
the  Flemish,  Dutch,  and  Suabian  schools,  and  to  the 
direct  or  indirect  influence  of  the  contemporary  German 
engravers  and  etchers.  This  influence  may  indeed  from 
time  to  time  be  called,  rather,  collaboration.  In  certain 
cases — for  example  in  that  of  Veit  Stoss — the  artist 
will  be  considered  by  some  to  have  been  more  distin- 
guished as  an  etcher  than  as  a  sculptor.  That  the 
wood-carver  was  very  often  a  painter  also,  is  of  im- 
portance from  another  point  of  view :  that  is  to  say, 
with  regard  to  the  actual  colouring  of  the  sculpture. 

If  we  should  look  around  such  a  fairly  representative 
collection  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  department  devoted 
to  wood  in  the  Bavarian  National  Museum  at  Munich, 
the  general  similarity  just  alluded  to  can  hardly  be 
disputed.  It  is  not  always  easy,  even  for  an  expert, 
to  distinguish  the  productions  of  the  Franconian, 
Suabian,  Westphalian,  High  German,  Low  German, 
Rhenish,  Bavarian,  or  Tyrolese  schools  :  and  experts 
themselves  will  differ  considerably  in  their  ascriptions. 
It  is  not,  of  course,  intended  to  assert  that  we  should 
have  any  difficulties  with  regard,  say,  to  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  a  Liibeck  school  of  the  fifteenth 
century  or  others  which  we  associate  with  Rhineland 
work,  but  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  concern  ourselves 
with  minute  territorial  distinctions.  Nor  does  it  follow 
that  because  we  find  such  and  such  an  example  in 
such  and  such  a  neighbourhood  that  the  latter  is 
necessarily  the  place  of  origin.  Artists  themselves 
moved  about  a  good  deal.  Amongst  the  finest,  if  not 
the  finest,  work  of  Veit  Stoss  is  the  altarpiece  at  Cracow 
several  hundred  miles  from  the  town  of  his  adoption 
and  the  school  with  which  he  is  identified.  Further 
than  this,  our  information  concerning  the  sculptors 
themselves  and  anything  positive  to  guide  us  in  the 
ascription  to  them  of  any  definite  piece  is,  as  else\\here 

79 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

almost  up  to  the  sixteenth  century,  scanty  and  vague 
indeed. 

We  shall  devote  considerable  attention  to  several 
important  pieces  attributed  to  Tillmann  Riemensch- 
neider,  to  Veit  Stoss,  and  to  Conrad  Meit  Yet 
whatever  value  (and  this  no  doubt  is  very  great) 
may  be  attached  to  the  judgment  of  some  leading 
critics  in  assigning  certain  works  to  these  names,  it  is, 
after  all,  very  often  a  matter  of  pure  conjecture,  and  we 
have  no  positive  evidence  in  support.  There  is,  as  yet, 
no  finality  in  the  assumption  that  Riemenschneider  is 
the  master  of  the  Creglingen  altarpiece,  of  the  Anna 
selbdritt  group  and  the  Adam  and  Eve  busts  at 
Kensington,  that  Veit  Stoss  executed  the  statue  of 
St.  Roch  in  the  Ognissanti  at  Florence,  or  Meit  the 
busts  in  the  British  Museum.  Over  and  over  again 
we  meet  with  work  which  may  be  by  Stoss,  but  which 
we  have  no  real  authority  for  characterizing  otherwise 
than  of  the  Niirnberg  school.  For  example,  the  fine 
figures  of  our  Lord  and  the  Apostles  of  the  Deokarus 
altar,  or  the  Madonna  in  a  flame-glory  of  the  Sebaldus- 
kirche  :  or,  of  greater  importance  from  its  connexion 
with  the  Madonna  of  Niirnberg,  the  Pieta  of  the 
Jakobskirche.  We  do  not  know  for  certain  whether 
Diirer  or  Wohlgemut  or  Peter  Vischer  worked  in 
wood.  The  mystery  surrounding  the  famous  Madonna 
of  Niirnberg  is  greater  still.  Though  some  confidently 
see  in  it  the  style  of  Stoss,  others  are  equally  struck  by 
resemblances  to  that  of  Vischer  or  Krafft.  The  fact 
remains  that  it  stands  by  itself,  as  it  were,  the  single 
masterpiece  of  a  genius  of  whom  we  know  neither  the 
name  nor  any  other  work  with  which  to  compare  it. 
Again,  the  kinds  of  wood  used  furnish  us  with  no 
safe  guide.  Limewood  was  very  general  in  Franconia 
as  in  Bavaria  and  elsewhere,  and  if  on  the  other  hand  oak 
was  almost  exclusively  used  in  some  districts,  we 
find  it  also  throughout  the  empire.  Thus  it  is  that 
80 


GERMAN    FIGURE    WORK 

although  there  may  be  a  remarkable  similarity  of 
style — with  regard  to  several  of  the  best  examples 
which  may  be  selected  for  illustration — there  is  con- 
siderable difficulty  in  finding  not  only  the  master  to 
whom  they  are  due,  but  even  the  school.  Although 
the  art  of  figure  sculpture  in  wood  was  more  popular 
in  Germany,  and  more  widely  practised  than  anywhere 
else,  it  hardly  succeeded  in  attaining  an  elevation 
comparable  with  that  of  Flanders  or  of  Italy.  Excep- 
tions which  will  presently  be  noticed  are  remark- 
able indeed,  the  more  so  because  they  are  distinctly 
original  and  national,  and  find  their  like  in  the  wood- 
carving  art  of  no  other  country.  However  reasonable, 
then,  it  may  be  to  form  certain  groups,  the  positive 
identification  with  a  particular  artist  is  often  im- 
possible. To  take  but  one  only  of  several  cases  which 
might  be  quoted — the  '  Verganglichkeit '  ascribed  to 
Riemenschneider.  This  might  be  given  to  almost  any 
one  of  the  greatest  names  from  Brussels  to  Munich, 
and  certainly  is  more  impressed  with  Renaissance  than 
with  Gothic  feeling. 

Among  the  general  characteristics  of  German  figure 
work  of  the  late  Gothic  period,  varying  in  importance 
as  time  progressed,  are  the  somewhat  stunted  propor- 
tions of  the  men,  their  large  heads,  bony  and  elongated 
faces, and  strained  expressions,  the  long  strongly  marked 
hands  and  long  thin  fingers,  the  stereotyped  fashion 
of  wiglike  curly  hair,  the  placid,  sweet-smiling  and 
decidedly  round-faced  type  of  the  women,  and  the 
evident  striving  after  a  realism  which,  under  the  still 
existing  restraints  imposed  by  Gothic  tradition,  was 
not  to  be  attained  until  a  change  in  these  ideas  brought 
with  it  a  free  study  of  the  nude.  Added  to  these,  a 
passion  for  treating  the  draperies  of  figures  with  an 
exaggeration  of  angular  folds  which  becomes  irritating. 
This  exaggeration  of  a  style  of  which  they  were  by  no 
means  the  inventors  is  well  expressed  by  the  French 
F  8i 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

term  tourmentS,  and  in  German  sometimes  Schnitzstil. 
Wood  was  the  national  glory,  everywhere  employed  for 
countless  single  figures  and  panels  in  low  and  high 
relief,  as  a  rule  richly  painted  and  thickly  gilded.  In 
the  altarpieces,  following  the  example  of  the  Nether- 
lands, but  applying  it  in  a  different  way,  there  is  a 
striving  after  pictorial  effect  by  placing  the  figures  in 
different  planes.  The  workers  were  no  mean  artists. 
Well  instructed  in  their  apprentice  days,  the  practice 
was  general  of  passing  several  wander-years,  as  the 
German  term  has  it,  of  travel,  before  attaining  a  stand- 
ing as  a  master.  The  two  great  divisions  from  which 
it  is  proposed  now  to  draw  examples  for  illustration  are 
those  of  Franconia  and  Suabia.  Briefly  summarizing, 
we  may  define  sufficiently  for  our  purpose,  Franconia 
as  one  of  ten  circles  into  which  the  empire  was  divided, 
bounded  by  Thuringia  and  Hesse  Cassel  on  the  north, 
by  the  upper  Rhenish  provinces  on  the  west,  by  Bohemia 
on  the  east,  and  by  Suabia  on  the  south.  Suabia 
extended  to  France  on  the  west  and  to  Switzerland  on 
the  south.  We  shall  include  therefore  the  schools 
which  we  may  term  Franconian,  Suabian,  Bavarian, 
and  Tyrolese,  and  the  towns  of  Niirnberg,  Wiirzburg, 
Augsburg,  Munich,  Rothenburg  and  the  Tauber  dis- 
trict, and  Ulm.  Incidentally,  for  special  reasons,  we 
shall  travel  to  the  extreme  north,  to  Liibeck  and 
Schleswig  and  Danzig  of  the  Baltic  provinces,  to 
Cracow  in  Poland,  to  Zwickau  in  Saxony  and  else- 
where. Artist  life  of  lower  Franconia  became  almost 
concentrated  in  Niirnberg,  more  strikingly  so  in  the 
case  of  wood-carving  than  in  any  other  department. 
In  the  popular  idea  no  other  art  is  more  identified  with 
that  city.  We  shall  not,  therefore,  expect  to  find  much 
independence  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.  At 
the  same  time  Wiirzburg,  some  sixty  miles  to  the 
north-west,  had,  since  Bamberg  lost  the  pre-eminence 
in  sculpture  which  distinguished  it  even  so  late  as  the 
82 


LOWER    PRANKISH    SCHOOLS 

middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  acquired  a  distinction 
which  places  it,  so  far  as  wood  is  concerned,  in  pro- 
minent rivalry.  Its  independence  of  the  Niirnberg 
schools,  and  its  condition  of  individual  development,  was 
in  g^reat  measure  due  to  its  connexion  with  the  neigh- 
bouring Suabian  art  which  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  was,  especially  in  painting,  substantially  in 
advance  of  that  of  Niirnberg.  The  name  of  Riemen- 
schneider  has  conferred  on  Wiirzburg  a  celebrity  of  a 
similar  kind  to  that  which,  in  the  case  of  Niirnberg,  is 
connected  in  popular  esteem  with  Veit  Stoss.  Another 
important  centre  is  to  be  found  in  Rothenburg  in  the 
valley  of  the  Tauber  in  Bavarian  Franconia.  These 
lower  Prankish  schools  show  in  a  remarkable  degree 
the  characteristic  calm  and  stolid  severity  which  are 
striking  features  of  much  of  the  German  retable  work. 
The  same  feeling  is  expressed  by  the  single  figures. 
An  emotional  dramatic  motive,  with  exceptions  which 
will  be  noted,  as  a  whole  is  absent.  In  the  best 
examples  what  one  finds  is  a  series  of  well-conceived 
and  delicately  handled  single  figures  and  groups.  In 
a  large  number  of  cases,  however,  they  are  the  work  of 
self-taught  or  untrained  men  who  were  more  or  less 
able  craftsmen.  When  there  was  question,  therefore, 
of  such  an  important  work  as  the  altarpiece  or  shrine 
for  the  relic  of  the  Precious  Blood  in  the  chapel  for 
that  purpose  in  the  Parish  Church  of  St.  James  at 
Rothenburg,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  authorities 
should  have  gone  elsewhere.  Their  choice  of  an  artist 
for  the  central  group  was  Riemenschneider,  of  whom 
we  shall  presently  hear  a  great  deal  more. 

The  Suabian  provinces  had  been  distinguished  in 
sculpture  from  early  times.  Prom  early  in  the  four- 
teenth century  we  meet  with  great  work  at  Ulm,  at 
Stuttgart,  at  Esslingen,  at  Augsburg,  in  Bavaria  and 
throughout  South  Germany.  The  Suabian  tempera- 
ment   in  art,  which   we   recognize  also    in   our  wood- 

83 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

carving,  is  simpler,  more  homely  in  character  than  the 
ahnost  truculent  excitability  and  striving  after,  if  not 
attaining,  dramatic  expression  which  seems  to  charac- 
terize that  of  Franconia.  But  it  would  appear  that 
the  latter  school  soon  wrested  from  the  Suabian  'jts 
pride  of  place  in  sculpture,  giving  the  tone  to  almost 
the  whole  of  the  empire. 

The  great  altarpiece  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum,  fully  painted  and  thickly  gilt,  which  will  be 
briefly  described  later  on,  offers  a  sufficiently  charac- 
teristic example  of  the  style  which  prevailed  in  South 
German  districts  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  century.  Of  different  degrees 
of  merit,  these  sculptures  abound  in  the  village  churches, 
not  often  of  so  high  a  character  as  the  example  which 
the  museum  was  fortunate  enough  to  acquire  so  long 
ago  as  1859,  but  as  a  rule  of  very  great  interest  from 
the  sincerity  and  quaintness  of  the  treatment,  the  homely 
character  frequently  expressed  in  the  peasant  type  of 
the  figures,  the  insight  into  details  of  costumes,  and  of 
the  manners  of  the  period,  and  the  obviously  devotional 
feeling  with  which,  at  so  late  a  time,  when  the  Renais- 
sance and  reforming  ideas  were  making  a  strong 
impression,  pervade  them.  Still,  for  the  proper 
appreciation  of  such  altarpieces  as  that  at  Kensington, 
one  must  imagine  them  divested  of  colour,  for  despite 
its  gorgeousness  and  the  rich  and  thickly  laid-on 
gilding,  it  would  then  be  seen  that  the  sculptor  was 
by  far  the  greater  artist  of  the  two :  allowing  that  they 
were  perhaps  identical  personally.  That  Augsburg 
should  not  figure  so  prominently  as  Niirnberg  or 
Wurzburg  in  sculptured  woodwork  of  a  religious 
character  is  due  no  doubt  to  the  terrible  destructions 
consequent  on  the  Reformation.  What  little  is  to  be 
found  in  museums  we  can  only  assign  by  conjecture 
to  this  city.  Two  important  pieces,  however,  will 
be  mentioned  presently.     The  Bavarian  and  Austrian 

84 


BAVARIA    AND    TYROL 

provinces  have  much  in  common  with  the  Suabian, 
and  the  work  of  the  Tyrol  is,  as  one  would  expect, 
nearly  related  to  that  of  upper  Bavaria.  We  shall  find 
its  best  expression  in  the  altarpieces  and  figure  work 
of  Michael  Pacher,  and  in  the  figures  of  the  Virgin  and 
Apostles  at  Blutenberg.  While  we  have  to  recognize 
the  influence  which,  from  its  geographical  position, 
Italy  could  not  have  failed  to  exert,  the  art  at  the  same 
time  is  unmistakably  German.  The  village  churches 
and  chapels  of  the  old  castles  of  Bavaria  and  the 
Bavarian  Tyrol  have  long  furnished  almost  a  gold 
mine  in  the  way  of  old  carving  in  profusion,  from 
statue  work  to  furniture,  to  the  museums  of  Vienna, 
Munich,  and  other  places.  The  whole  district  in  fact, 
from  Hohenschwangau  and  Innsbruck  on  the  north, 
Meran  and  Salzburg  and  Lindau  in  the  centre,  to 
Botzen  on  the  south,  has  been  ransacked  for  the  treasures 
which  abounded.  Cartloads  of  altarpieces,  shrines, 
panellings,  elaborately  carved  bedsteads  and  furniture 
of  all  kinds,  now  adorn  many  museums  and  private 
collections.  Tyrolese  Gothic  has  a  character  of  its 
own.  As  an  example  may  be  cited  the  bedstead 
belonging  to  Mr.  Baillie-Grohman,  to  which  allusion 
has  already  been  made.  It  has  more  originality, 
individual  taste,  and  inventive  skill,  is  less  dependent 
on  a  conventional  imitation  of  architectural  forms  ;  is 
simpler,  more  solid,  less  given  to  fretw^ork,  geometrical 
forms,  and  fantastically  twisted  pinnacles  and  other 
dragged-in  ornament  than  we  find  in  northern  work 
or  even  in  that  of  Franconia  and  Suabia.  Oak  and 
other  of  the  harder  woods  were  not  common,  and 
therefore  not  often  used.  Instead,  we  find  pinewood 
frequently,  larch,  lime,  and  chestnut.  There  is  an 
absence  of  too  exact  finish  and  measurement  and  an 
admirably  free  treatment  of  plant-form  growth,  ever 
varying  in  luxuriantly  convoluted  and  twisted  forms, 
but  not  a  realistic  copy  of  nature.     At  times  one    is 

85 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

reminded  of  the  character  of  the  emblazonments  of 
German  heraldic  mantling. 

In  Saxony  the  best  wood-work  is  strongly  sugges- 
tive of  the  influence  of  Niirnberg,  but  the  local 
style  is,  in  general,  distinctly  lifeless,  impersonal, 
commercial  work,  with  an  absence  of  any  beauty  in 
the  type  of  the  faces.  The  figures  are  lanky  and 
badly  proportioned,  and  even  in  the  draperies  one 
finds  nothing  more  than  an  unintelligent  copying  from 
the  woodcuts  and  copper  prints  of  the  time.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  are  confronted  in  the  Piet^  of  the 
Marienkirche  at  Zwickau  with  a  masterpiece  which, 
allowing  for  exaggerations  due  to  the  prevailing  taste 
of  the  time,  may  claim  a  place  among  the  best  which 
the  Franconian  artists  can  show.  The  Thuringian 
school,  in  evident  touch  with  those  of  Niirnberg  and 
Wlirzburg,  is  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Valentine 
Lendenstreich.  Amongst  his  other  work  is  an  altar 
in  the  chapel  of  the  castle  of  Schwarzburg,  Rudolstadt, 
dated  1503.  In  common  with  many  wood  sculptors  of 
his  time  Lendenstreich  had  no  hesitation  in  copying  or 
freely  adapting  from  Schongauer  and  other  engravers, 
and  even  directly  from  the  school  of  Riemenschneider. 
About  an  hour  from  Rudolstadt,  in  Thuringia,  is 
Neusitz,  where  in  the  late  fifteenth  century  there  was 
evidently  a  considerable  industry  in  the  carving  and 
painting  of  altarpieces.  In  the  parish  church  is  a 
retable  with  the  characteristic  doll-like  figures  under 
canopies,  painted  and  gilt :  perhaps  by  Lendenstreich. 
But  throughout  Thuringia  the  work  of  the  second  half 
of  the  fifteenth  century  lacks  artistic  distinction.  It 
is  not  that  it  is  undeserving  of  any  notice,  but, 
strongly  influenced  by  the  school  of  Wiirzburg,  much 
of  the  better  class  is  very  likely  the  imported  work  of 
Franconian  masters,  and  cannot  call  for  separate  notice 
merely  on  account  of  its  position. 

In  the  northern  districts  bordering  on  Belgium 
86 


FLEMISH    ALTARPIECES 

and  Holland,  there  is  a  wealth  of  Flemish  altar- 
work,  exiled,  no  doubt,  during  the  wars  of  religion  in 
the  Netherlands.  Flemish  artists,  also,  would  have 
emigrated,  and  the  opportunity  would  have  been  taken 
of  acquiring  their  services.  Their  altarpieces  were, 
indeed,  scattered  elsewhere,  besides,  and  examples  are 
still  to  be  found  in  France  and  Spain,  and  especially  in 
Sweden.  Nearly  all  are  of  the  pictorial  character,  and, 
although  some  fine  specimens  may  still  be  seen  in 
museums  in  Belgium,  it  is  to  the  North  German 
churches  and  to  Sweden  that  we  must  go  for  a  very 
large  number :  to  Liibeck,  Calcar,  and  Xanten,  and  to 
the  museum  of  Stockholm  for  retables  formerly  in 
Swedish  churches.  Calcar  itself  was  at  one  time  the 
centre  of  a  great  school  of  wood  sculpture,  but  this 
was  in  almost  complete  subjection  to  the  art  of  the 
Netherlands.  It  is  now  a  small  town  of  little  im- 
portance. The  style,  then,  is  in  general  Flemish. 
Elaborate  scenes  are  included  in  the  central  division, 
or  in  panels  on  the  wings,  with  multitudes  of  figures 
in  perspective ;  such,  at  least,  as  this  was  under- 
stood at  the  time.  We  find  very  commonly  the 
story  of  St.  George  and  the  dragon  and  the  rescue  of 
the  princess  :  one  part  of  the  legend  in  the  foreground, 
another  on  a  higher  plane  amongst  a  landscape  of  a 
hilly  country,  with  towns  and  castles  and  winding 
roads.  These  altarpieces  are  not  always  of  the  same 
date  throughout.  Some  panels  are  evidently  much 
earlier  than  others,  and  we  find,  also,  Gothic  figures 
and  scenes  placed  amongst  quite  late  Renaissance  and 
rococo  surroundings.  The  variety  and  wealth  of  detail 
in  these  compositions  is  astonishing.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  parallel  elsewhere  to  the  height  of 
dramatic  treatment  of  the  scenes  in  the  life  of  our 
Lord,  and  the  legends  of  the  saints.  The  high  altar 
at  Calcar  is  an  astounding  piece  of  elaborate  pictorial 
carving.     More  subdued  but  quite  as  effective  is  the 

87 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

retable  of  the  Brief-Kapelle  in  the  Marienkirche  of 
Liibeck  (Plate  vi.),  the  work,  in  all  likelihood,  of  Jan 
Borman  of  Brussels  about  the  year  15 18.  Probably 
a  considerable  number  of  these  altarpieces  are  the 
work  of  Westphalian  artists. 

The  wood  sculpture  of  Cologne  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury must  be  briefly  passed  over,  although  there  is  much 
to  attract  attention.  Yet,  even  in  such  figures  as  those 
of  St.  George,  which  are  so  common,  where  the  saint  is 
in  full  armour,  bearing  a  sword  with  a  wavy  edge  (an 
extremely  good  example  is  in  the  Rothschild  bequest 
in  the  British  Museum),  there  is  an  affectation  in  style 
more  appropriate  to  a  mignon  of  the  courts  :  mincing, 
rather  than  of  the  intrepid  soldier.  In  German  wood 
sculpture  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  it  is 
impossible  to  help  remarking  a  very  considerable 
absence  of  originality  both  in  subject  and  treatment. 
It  is  true  that  the  same  holds  good  in  respect  to  other 
departments  of  art,  but  with  these  we  are  not  at  pre- 
sent concerned. 

For  a  complete  understanding  of  the  sources  from 
which  the  sculptor  drew  his  inspiration,  a  study  is 
necessary  of  the  work  of  the  wood  engravers  and 
etchers ;  of  Diirer,  Burgkmair,  Beham,  Schongauer, 
Virgil  Solis,  and  many  other  contemporary  masters  of 
ornament.  Even  the  greatest  of  those  with  whom  we 
shall  presently  be  concerned — amongst  others,  Riemen- 
schneider,  Wohlgemut,  Stoss,  Haguenauer,  or  Daucher 
— were  not  only  indebted  to  these  sources  for  ideas, 
but  whole  panels  of  their  most  admired  altarpieces  are 
direct  copies  from  them.  How  far  also  they  were 
directly  influenced  by  the  Flemish  and  German  masters 
of  painting,  by  the  Van  Eycks,  the  Memlings,  and 
Van  der  Weydens,  and,  in  particular,  by  the  Cologne 
school  of  the  fourteenth  century,  is  a  subject  to  which 
it  is  necessary  to  draw  attention,  though  it  cannot 
be  followed  here  in  detail.  It  must  suffice  to  say  that 
88 


PLATE    VI 


WANT    OF    ORIGINALITY 

it  is  connected  not  only  with  every  remarkable  example 
to  which  reference  will  presently  be  made,  but  also 
with  innumerable  other  altarpieces  and  single  figures 
of  the  fifteenth  century  in  the  churches  and  museums 
throughout  the  country.  Whether  directly  derived 
from  paintings  or  from  the  work  of  engravers,  the 
practice  is  often  not  merely  a  case  of  inspiration,  but  of 
actual  copying,  in  the  composition  of  the  subject.  The 
arrangement  of  the  folds  and  the  disposition  of  the 
draperies,  the  fashion  of  a  mantle,  a  veil,  or  a  head- 
dress, the  type  and  costume  of  such  a  figure  as  the 
angel  of  an  Annunciation  group,  the  expression,  and, 
especially  in  the  women,  the  very  model  herself,  the 
flowing  hair  in  long  straight  slightly  curling  strands — 
all  this  and  more  is,  it  may  be  said,  but  the  system  of 
the  time,  and  the  interchange  of  ideas  amongst  all  the 
arts  was  general.  Still,  it  would  be  remarkable,  per- 
haps, if  a  Riemenschneider  should  have  been  unmoved 
not  only  by  the  Flemish  primitives,  his  contemporaries, 
but  also  by  those  earlier  Suabian  schools,  the  glory  of 
his  own  country.  Beautiful  and  inspiring  indeed  is  a 
Stefan  Lochner,  to  whom  Diirer  himself  in  his  journal 
of  travels  to  the  Low  Countries  contributes  his  meed 
of  enthusiasm.  From  such  a  one — amongst  so  many 
more  whom  we  know  only  by  the  titles  of  their  works 
— from  these  followers  of  the  earlier  Dutch  and  Flemish 
mystics,  came  the  strengthening  of  the  impulse  which, 
without  entirely  abandoning  the  ideal,  was  to  add  to  it 
a  homely  personal  realism.  It  would  be  a  matter  of 
difficulty,  no  doubt,  to  apportion  the  relative  indebted- 
ness to  this  or  that  source,  for  with  Stefan  Lochner 
ends  the  distinct  character  of  the  Cologne  school. 
After  him,  German,  Dutch,  and  Flemish  are  merged  in 
one,  or  at  least  the  differences  are  not  great.  The 
Germans  go  for  instruction  to  the  studios  of  Bruges 
and  Louvain,  and  the  greatest  of  Flemish  painters  are 
called    upon   to   contribute   their    masterpieces   to   the 

89 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

churches  of  the  empire.  When,  however,  we  find 
such  frequent  relationships  in  subject  and  treatment 
between  the  sculptured  altarpieces  and  the  work  of  the 
wood-engravers  and  etchers,  we  are  led  to  inquire  how 
far  there  was  collaboration  between  their  authors.  We 
know  that  in  many  cases  such  great  men  as  Dlirer 
were  on  intimate  terms  with  the  sculptors,  their 
contemporaries :  he  himself  a  pupil  in  Wohlgemut's 
studio,  as  Riemenschneider  was  also.  Was,  then, 
Riemenschneider,  for  instance,  in  later  years,  free  to 
copy  or  adapt  for  his  altarpiece,  now  in  the  Bavarian 
Museum,  Diirer's  *  Decollation  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,' 
or  did  he  do  so  at  the  engraver's  instigation  ?  For  this 
is  a  direct  copy  of  Diirer's  woodcut  of  151 1.  There  is  no 
Dlirer  cypher  or  so-called  monogram,  it  is  true,  but  we 
seem  to  be  face  to  face  with  a  similar  problem  to  that 
involved  in  the  question  of  so  many  honestone  and 
wood  reliefs  and  medallions  on  which  it  is  found  :  a 
question  still  awaiting  a  final  answer.  Did  Albert 
Diirer  himself  use  the  chisel  of  the  sculptor?  From 
his  training,  from  the  artistic  methods  of  the  time,  the 
absence  of  specialization,  and  the  fact  that  we  know 
that  so  many  others  were  at  once  painters,  engravers, 
etchers,  goldsmiths,  bronze-casters,  and  sculptors  in 
stone,  limestone,  wood,  or  ivory,  it  is  only  natural  to 
suppose  that  he  did.  From  time  to  time  the  saleroom 
still  professes  to  furnish  examples.  As  lately  as  October 
1906  a  small  boxwood  statuette  of  an  old  man,  from  the 
Keele  Hall  collection,  was  ascribed  to  Diirer  and  sold 
at  Christie's  for  430  guineas. 

The  question  is  of  more  importance  when  we  come 
to  consider  the  boxwoods  and  medallions  of  the  early 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century.  But  when  we  find  so 
prominent  a  wood  sculptor  as  Veit  Stoss  almost  as 
prolific  in  etched  work  as  in  sculpture,  and,  to  cite 
but  one  example — the  central  panel  of  his  altarpiece 
in  the  Academy  at  Cracow  which  is  a  reproduction 
90 


INFLUENCE    OF    DURER 

of  one  of  his  own  etchings — it  would  be  interest- 
ing to  determine  what,  in  general,  were  the  rela- 
tionships between  the  two  crafts.  That  Dtirer  and 
his  art  exercised  a  considerable  influence  on  the 
arts  of  the  German  and  Italian  Renaissance  during 
the  last  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  still  more 
up  to  the  time  of  his  death  in  1528,  and  even  after- 
wards, is,  of  course,  unquestioned.  The  studio  or 
workshop  of  Wohlgemut  is  of  considerable  import- 
ance in  the  history  of  our  subject,  and  here  Diirer 
was  apprenticed  in  i486  as  to  the  best  master  of 
painting  of  the  day.  Then  he  travels  extensively  for  his 
wanderjdhre — to  Italy,  as  far  as  Venice,  to  Colmar, 
Augsburg,  Innsbruck,  the  Tyrol,  Trent,  Basel,  Strass- 
burg — before  establishing  himself  in  his  native  city, 
Niirnberg,  at  that  time  the  centre  of  German  art.  The 
first  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  take  him  again  to 
Italy  for  a  long  residence,  and  there  he  enjoys  the 
society  and  friendship  of  the  great  Italian  painters, 
engravers,  and  sculptors :  of  Raphael,  Bellini,  Man- 
tegna,  and  Marc  Antonio.  More  years  pass  before  his 
visit  to  the  Netherlands  in  1520  brings  about  a  decided 
influence  in  his  change  of  style.  But  it  is  almost  the 
close  of  his  life.  Adam  Krafft  is  dead  (1509):  Veit 
Stoss  and  Riemenschneider  die  within  a  year  of  each 
other  (1530- 1 531),  the  one  at  the  age  of  90,  the  other 
over  70.  Diirer's  influence  is,  again,  markedly  strong 
in  the  work  of  the  boxwood  carvers  and  medallion- 
makers.  Amongst  these  he  had  the  greatest  admira- 
tion for  Conrad  Meit.  It  is  not  only  on  honestone 
reliefs  and  boxwood  medallions  that  the  Diirer  cypher, 

the  famous    ^    adopted  by  him  in  1497,  so  frequently 

calls  for  explanation.  The  imperial  gallery  at  Vienna 
possesses  the  admirable  carved  wood  frame  for  the 
great  picture  known  as  the  '  All  Saints,'  or  the  Adora- 
tion   of  the   Trinity,    and    it   bears    this   cypher.     As 

91 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Thausing  says,  in  his  Life  of  Dilrer,  'There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Diirer  superintended  the  carving,  rule  and 
compasses  in  hand.  For  who  at  Niirnberg  but  himself 
could  have  designed  anything  which  so  completely 
breathes  the  spirit  of  the  antique  .  .  .  the  spirit  of 
classical  forms  ? '  \Vithin  the  panel  of  the  tympanum 
appears,  in  high  relief,  the  Saviour,  as  Judge  of  the 
world,  between  the  Virgin  and  St.  John :  at  each 
end  are  angels  in  the  round,  blowing  trumpets,  and 
there  was  another,  now  missing,  at  the  top.  Sculp- 
tures in  wood,  ivory,  and  honestone,  bearing  the 
monogram  are  numerous.  This,  decorative  in  itself, 
was  easily  forged,  if,  indeed,  the  term  may  be  applied, 
and  that  it  was  not  used,  in  some  cases  at  least,  by 
permission.  The  British  Museum  possesses  the  hone- 
stone  relief  of  the  birth  of  John  the  Baptist,  now 
generally  attributed  to  Georg  Schweiger,  who  would 
seem  to  be  the  author  of  many  others.  The  Pierpont 
Morgan  collection  has  the  famous  honestone  Venus 
Kallipyge,  for  which  it  would  seem  certain  that  Diirer 
made  the  drawings,  two  of  which  now  remain  :  one  in 
a  MS.  volume  in  the  Dresden  royal  library,  the  other 
in  the  collection  of  Professor  Blasius  at  Brunswick. 
But  the  relief  itself  may  be  the  work  of  Hans  Daucher. 
In  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  is  a  small  pear- 
wood  panel,  acquired  in  1858,  with  the  'Judgment  of 
Paris '  in  low  relief,  bearing  the  monogram  in  the  fore- 
ground of  the  landscape.  Bartsch  describes  the  etching 
by  Diirer  from  which  this  was  copied  (Peintre  graveur, 
vii.  134),  but  as  without  the  monogram.  A  boxwood 
panel  in  the  Morgan  collection  is  after  a  woodcut  by 
Hans  Burgkmair.  In  the  Vienna  Imperial  Museum 
are  two  round  boxes  in  boxwood  with  portrait  reliefs 
which  are  free  copies  from  Diirer's  '  Frederic  the  Wise 
of  Saxony' :  within  is  written  in  pencil  'fyt  Stoss  den 
elder',  an  attribution  no  doubt  of  some  early  critic.  A 
small  walnut  panel  in  the  Kensington  Museum  is  a 
92 


INFLUENCE    OF    ENGRAVERS 

copy,  with  slight  differences,  from  the  lower  half  of  a 
well-known  painting  of  the  Rhenish  school  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  '  Paradise '  picture  in  the  Frank- 
furt Museum.  Martin  Schongauer  and  Hans  Sebald 
Beham  were,  amongst  other  masters  of  the  upper 
German  schools,  simply  mines  from  which  to  extract 
ideas  and  turn  them  into  sculpture.  From  these  the 
adapters  took  especially  the  fashion  and  fall  of  the 
draperies  and  the  angular  folds  in  which  they  de- 
lighted. Schongauer  was  perhaps  more  drawn  upon 
than  any  other.  Wohlgemut  copied  many  of  his 
engravings,  and  even  the  small  boxwood  statuettes  of 
the  Madonna — there  is  an  example  in  the  Kensington 
Museum — are  sometimes,  as  this  one  is,  practically 
copied  from  his  work.  Riemenschneider's  altarpiece 
in  the  Marienkirche  at  Salzwedel  is  from  a  Schongauer 
etching :  and  the  Madonnas  in  glories  of  flames,  what 
are  they  but  direct  imitations  of  the  little  German 
masters  of  the  fifteenth  century  ?  The  boxwood 
medallions  to  be  noticed  in  a  succeeding  chapter,  even 
in  the  case  of  such  artists  as  Daucher  and  Haguenauer, 
are  sometimes  copied  from  paintings.  For  example, 
the  portrait  by  Haguenauer  of  Henry  viii.  is  after 
Holbein's  miniature  at  Windsor,  and  the  'Alchemy' 
and  '  Grammar,'  in  the  Louvre,  are  of  Diirer  inspiration, 
tempered  by  Italian  influences.  So  again,  we  have  the 
panels  with  the  triumph  of  Maximilian  by  Daucher,  after 
Diirer.  All  this,  no  doubt,  in  some  cases  is  legitimate 
enough,  and  the  transcription  is  often  admirable,  and 
comparable  in  a  certain  sense  to  the  masterly  work  of 
the  line  engraver  or  etcher  who  translates  into  tones  of 
black  and  white  the  colour  of  a  painting.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  literal  renderingof  a  black  and  white  engraving 
— so  far  as  it  can  be  called  literal — by  the  contours  of  a 
sculptural  relief  approaching  the  round,  or  in  the  round 
itself,  is  contrary  to  the  character  of  the  two  arts,  and 
leads  to  abuses  of  which  examples  are  but  too  frequent. 

93 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  FRANCONIAN,  BAVARIAN,  AND  OTHER  GERMAN 
ARTISTS  AND  WORKSHOPS  OF  THE  END  OF  THE 
GOTHIC  PERIOD 

IT  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  are  in  possession  of  so 
few  names  of  importance  which  can  be  attached 
to  the  crowd  of  sculptured  work  still  remaining 
in  the  churches  throughout  the  country,  or  now  trans- 
ferred to  many  museums  and  private  collections  in 
Germany  and  elsewhere.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be 
repeated  that  the  merit  is  very  unequal.  There  are 
masterpieces,  but  there  is  also  a  vast  quantity  of  poor 
work  which  has  little  call  for  notice  beyond  its  curiosity 
value  and  the  sentiment  which  may  attach  to  the 
subject,  or  local  interest.  Concerning  such  things 
monographs  are  not  wanting.  The  number  of  artists, 
and  of  work,  of  the  first  class  to  which  it  is  necessary 
to  refer  in  any  detail,  is  therefore  restricted  :  limited, 
in  fact,  to  hardly  more  than  half-a-dozen  names  during 
the  last  century  of  Gothic  art  and  the  transition.  Of  the 
later  date,  the  workers  in  boxwood  and  the  medallionists 
will  furnish  a  separate  chapter.  What  we  shall  be 
concerned  with  is  almost  exclusively  religious  art  in 
the  form  of  retables  and  altarpieces,  and  the  statuettes 
and  groups  which  in  many  cases  were  made  for  them. 
But,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  there  still  remains  the 
greatest  doubt  to  whom,  amongst  those  named,  we  can 
definitely  assign  certain  of  the  most  important  pieces. 

94 


FRANCONIAN    SCHOOLS 

Signed  work  is  of  the  extremest  rarity,  and  documen- 
tary evidence  almost  wholly  wanting.  We  are  ignorant 
even  of  the  birthplaces  and  dates  of  birth  of  Veit  Stoss 
or  of  Riemenschneider. 

The  pervading  similarity  of  style  and  technique, 
outside  the  exceptional  pieces  which  will  be  selected, 
has  already  been  noticed.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  these  men  worked  also  in  stone  or  bronze,  and 
we  must  be  prepared  to  find  that  in  many  cases  the 
methods  and  actual  technique  of  the  sculpture  in 
stone  and  wood  are  almost  indistinguishable.  In 
addition,  painter  and  sculptor  were  in  Germany,  as 
elsewhere,  intimately  connected  and  dependent  on 
each  other.  Workshops  and  schools  existed  which 
were  controlled  or  directed  by  such  masters  as 
Wohlgemut,  and  work  turned  out  commercially  to 
order.  Imitation  and  copying  from  the  masters  of 
engraving  were  rife,  and  if  there  were  certain  man- 
nerisms they  were  often  those  which  were  fashionable, 
and  common  alike  to  the  graphic  and  plastic  arts. 
Nothing  would  be  more  satisfactory  than,  could  we 
but  do  so,  to  feel  that  we  could  distinguish  a  Riemen- 
schneider by  a  mannerism  in  style  or  execution  which 
could  be  called  peculiar  to  him  and  to  no  other.  We 
can  get  near  this,  it  is  true,  as  will  be  shown  later 
on,  but  no  further.  Probably  the  masters  of  the  box- 
wood models  for  medals,  or  for  figures,  did  not  confine 
themselves  to  this  small  sculpture  alone,  but,  at  least 
in  their  earlier  days,  would  have  had  a  practical 
acquaintance  with,  and  have  worked  in  the  large  ateliers 
whence  proceeded  the  great  altarpieces  of  Creglingen 
or  of  Schwabach.  Doubtless  there  were  boxwood 
carvers  before  Hans  Schwarz.  But  with  him  we  are 
brought  to  the  beginnings  of  the  Reformation,  when 
the  disuse  of  images,  or  at  least  the  demand  for  them, 
must  have  greatly  diminished.  Yet  the  zeal  of  the 
iconoclasts  does  not  appear  to  have  affected  Germany 

95 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

in  the  way  it  did  England  or  Flanders.  To  this  day 
some  of  the  finest  carved  altarpieces  with  images,  or 
the  great  crucifixes  of  the  Roods,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Protestant  churches.  But  its  effects,  and  the  revival  of 
classical  ideas  in  art,  turned  the  attention  of  artists 
towards  the  glorification  of  individuals  rather  than  to 
the  illustration  of  devotional  ideas.  Piety  was  no 
longer  the  sole  incentive.  Disregard  for  fame  gave 
place,  happily  for  posterity,  to  a  more  general  desire  to 
perpetuate  a  name.  Besides  the  statuary  work  of  the 
great  altarpieces,  the  architectural  surroundings  or 
framings — often  with  elaborate  canopy  work  and  plant- 
form  tracery — cannot  be  left  entirely  out  of  account, 
though  it  is  not  now  proposed  to  deal  with  it  in  detail. 
There  is  ample  material  to  form  a  separate  subject, 
and  the  names  of  some  carvers  who  seem  to  have  been 
especially  devoted  to  it  are  known.  For  example,  the 
characteristic  framing  of  the  altarpiece  of  the  Precious 
Blood  at  Rothenburg  is  ascribed  to  one  Erhart. 
Foliage  and  intertwining  open  work  of  branches  and 
tendrils,  often  of  a  wild  and  thorny  character,  were 
much  affected,  especially  for  the  curtain-like  veil  which 
often  hangs  from  the  upper  parts  of  the  shrine.  There 
was  room  for  the  exercise  of  any  amount  of  capricious 
fancy  and  pleasant  play  of  branch  and  leaf-work,  flowing 
in  every  direction,  sometimes  abruptly  broken  off, 
sometimes  mingling  with  and  losing  itself  in  purely 
architectural  motives  of  corbel  or  cul-de-lampe  ;  dis- 
guised in  pinnacle  form,  or  a  pinnacle  itself  curled  and 
twisted  into  the  shape  of  a  half  unfolded  leaf  or  opening 
bud.  A  wilderness  of  vegetation  and  absence  of 
symmetry  in  accordance  with  nature's  own  methods, 
a  naturalism  as  of  things  really  growing,  and  in  all 
stages  of  growth  from  the  bud  to  the  full  bloom,  or 
already  decaying  leaf  or  stem,  a  perpetual  reminder  of 
growth  on  earth  even  in  its  unspoken  application  to 
the  holier  themes  with  which  it  was  connected — all  this 

96 


FRANCONIAN    SCHOOL 

may  be  found  carved  out  of  a  material  than  which  no 
other  is  so  appropriate,  though  it  is  found  also  in 
abundance  in  stone  sculpture,  in  the  ironworker's 
forgings,  or  the  goldsmith's  hammered  metal-work.  We 
are  bound  to  connect  much  fine  work  with  the  produc- 
tions of  Wohlgemut's  workshop.  In  an  atelier  under 
one  master  of  many  pupils — and  he  a  painter  who 
perhaps  never  carved  himself,  but  left  this  part  of  his 
altarpieces  to  his  pupils  and  assistants — there  would 
be  naturally  a  great  similarity  in  style.  His  young 
men  were  no  doubt  allowed  to  follow  pretty  freely  their 
own  bent,  with  the  advantage  of  his  advice  and  super- 
vision. Little  is  known  of  those  who  worked  in  the 
same  studio  as  Riemenschneider,  but  the  names,  at 
least,  of  many  of  his  contemporaries  may  be  gathered 
from  the  municipal  archives  of  Wiirzburg.  These 
young  artists  travelled  largely,  and  learnt  to  assimilate 
foreign  styles,  interchanging  ideas  also  with  all  parts 
of  Germany,  with  the  Rhine  or  Baltic  provinces,  with 
Thuringia  and  Saxony,  Bavaria  and  the  Tyrol,  Bohemia 
and  Poland.  Riemenschneider  himself  is  first  included 
in  the  list  in  1483,  but  as  painter  associate  only,  not  as 
sculptor.  Of  others,  who  may  also  have  attained  an 
equally  high  standing,  we  know  only  the  names.  With 
him  were  contemporaries  :  for  instance,  Lorenz  Miill  of 
Landsberg,  Michael  Bolz  of  Volkach,  Michael  Weiss, 
Ulrich  Hagenfurter,  Paul  Roisterer,  Hans  Metz,  and 
others,  but  these  are  but  names.  Of  their  work  and 
manner  we  know  nothing.  Amongst  them  may  lie 
concealed,  perhaps,  even  so  sympathetic  and  great  a 
master  as  the  creator  of  the  Niirnberg  Madonna.  It 
would  seem  to  be  the  fashion,  at  present,  to  ascribe  to 
Riemenschneider  anything  remarkable  of  the  school, 
especially  if  it  is  distinguished  by  a  certain  type  of 
face  and  curling  hair.  It  is  unfortunate  that  it  is  only 
for  the  less  distinguished  work  that  we  are  able  to  rely 
on  documentary  evidence.  His  reputation,  however, 
G  97 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

need  not  rest  upon  what  is  merely  conjecture,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  St.  Anne  group  and  the  Adam  and  Eve 
busts  at  Kensington,  while  we  may  give  him  with 
certainty  such  fine  work  as  the  effigy  in  stone  of  the 
Prince-Bishop  Rudolph  von  Scherenberg  in  Wurzburg 
cathedral.  There  is  a  good  reproduction  of  this 
monument  in  the  gallery  of  casts  at  Kensington. 


98 


CHAPTER   VII 

VEIT  STOSS— RIEMENSCHNEIDER— PACHER— 
MULTSCHER— BRUGGEMANN 

EVERY  lover  of  German  old-world  cities  knows 
Niirnberg,  its  narrow  streets,  and  the  old- 
fashioned  houses  with  their  half-timbered  and 
slim-turreted  fronts,  their  richly  ornamented  gables, 
and  angles  decorated  with  carved  figures.  Everywhere 
there  is  evidence  of  the  inborn  art  of  the  people  of 
mediaeval  times,  and  of  the  religious  feeling  of  the  age. 
There  is  little  need  to  name  its  famous  monuments, 
popular  all  the  world  over ;  the  Schone  Brunnen,  or 
the  little  goose-man.  If  the  name  of  Adam  Krafft  is 
mainly  associated  with  stone  sculpture,  Peter  Vischer 
and  his  family  with  bronze-founding  and  metal-work, 
that  of  Veit  Stoss  is  the  one  which  has  been  generally 
connected  with  the  wood-carving  art  of  Nurnberg. 
Indeed  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  only  one  m 
popular  estimation  of  German  wood-carving  until  recent 
years,  when  those  of  Riemenschneider,  Multscher, 
Hans  Schwarz,  Conrad  Meit,  Hans  Wydyz,  and  a  few 
others,  have  come  to  the  front  with  some  information 
concerning  them,  resulting  from  the  unwearied  industry 
of  German  writers.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  note  that  not 
one  of  these  names  appears  in  the  historical  introduction 
to  the  large  official  catalogue  of  wood-work  in  the  South 
Kensington  Museum,  published  in  1874,  which  up  to 
the  present  day  continues  to  be  the  only  one  of  that 
collection.     Nor  do  we  find  them  alluded  to — to  name 

99 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

no  other  histories  of  art — even  in  such  a  presumably 
comprehensive  compilation  as  Bayet's  Prdcis  de  Fhis- 
toire  de  Fart.  Veit  Stoss  stands,  then,  as  the  official 
representative  in  Germany  of  wood-carving  of  late 
Gothic  times.  For  all  that  he  was  no  Heaven-sent 
leader.  He  but  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  others, 
who  as  originators  were  greater  than  he.  Amongst 
them  we  know  the  names  of  two  at  least :  Hans 
Multscher,  hailing  from  farther  north,  and  Michael 
Pacher,  a  South  Bavarian  or  Tyrolese  master.  Of  the 
beginnings  of  the  art  of  wood-carving,  or  of  the  sister 
arts  of  stone  sculpture  and  metal  work,  which  made 
Niirnberg  famous,  we  are  almost  entirely  ignorant. 
Documents  and  municipal  archives  give  us  some  names 
of  artists,  but  for  identification  of  work  with  which  to 
connect  them,  hardly  anything.  As  a  rule  Veit  Stoss's 
earlier  altarpieces  show  that  he  merely  followed  a  style 
already  fully  developed.  He  used  the  same  models,  or 
rather  derived  his  type  of  woman  figure  from  the  same 
stereotyped  one  —  small,  narrow-busted,  and  with 
sloping  shoulders — which  had  come  to  be  the  only  one 
recognized  :  the  same  draperies,  the  same  mixture  of 
conventional  costume  and  of  the  fashion  of  his  day. 
Little  is  known  of  the  date  or  place  of  his  birth,  or  even 
of  his  nationality.  Although  Cracow  may  have  been 
his  birthplace,  and  his  origin  Polish,  Niirnberg  may 
claim  him  as  a  true  son  of  hers,  and  his  family  had 
definitely  settled  there.  In  the  archives  of  that  town 
a  document  is  preserved — the  contract  for  the  execution 
of  his  great  work,  the  altarpiece  of  the  Marienaltar  of 
the  cathedral — in  which  he  is  called  'Magister  Almanus 
de  Norimberga.'  The  son  probably  of  a  coppersmith, 
Michael  Stoss,  he  was  born  certainly  as  early  as  1447  ; 
for  it  would  seem  that  he  himself  had  a  son  born  in 
1464.  Without  going  further  into  questions  that  are 
more  proper  for  a  biography,  we  may  take  it  that  Veit 
Stoss  left  Niirnberg  to  settle  in  Cracow  in  1477.  He 
100 


VEIT    ST OSS 

had  served  his  apprenticeship,  perhaps,  and  accom- 
plished and  learnt  a  good  deal  in  the  travels  of  his 
IVajicierjdhre ;  no  doubt  had  already  visited  Cracow, 
had  become  a  master,  and,  as  the  early  work  of  his  long 
life  shows,  his  art  was  full-blown.  After  a  stay  of 
almost  twenty  years  in  Cracow,  where  he  must  have 
executed  a  considerable  quantity  of  wood-carving,  and 
applied  himself  also  to  etching,  Stoss  returned  to  Niirn- 
berg,  and  appears  to  have  worked  in  the  studio 
and  wood-carving  shop  of  Michael  Wohlgemut. 
There,  if  not  solely  responsible  for  the  altarpiece  of 
the  parish  church  of  Schwabach,  his,  no  doubt,  is  the 
carved  centre-piece  representing  our  Lord  and  the 
Blessed  Virgin  enthroned  between  St.  John  and 
St.  Martin  of  Tours.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that 
in  all  Wohlgemut's  altarpieces  the  central  place  of 
honour  is  of  carved  wood,  the  wings  painted.  Thausing, 
in  his  Life  of  Albert  Dilrer,  makes  some  cogent  re- 
marks with  reference  to  the  carved  work  w^hich  applies, 
in  a  general  way,  to  the  Franconian  wood  sculpture  of 
the  period.  He  characterizes  the  figures  as  '  slender 
and  graceful,  the  faces,  though  uniform  and  round, 
childlike,  with  an  innocent  look  characteristic  of  the 
old  Cologne  school :  antiquated,  stationary  art,  in 
glaring  contrast  to  Wohlgemut's  paintings  of  the  side- 
wings.'  The  general  arrangement,  painting,  and  gilding 
of  these  central  figures  was  probably  superintended  by 
the  painter.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  know,  now,  how 
to  apportion  the  credit  for  the  carved  work  which  at 
this  period  (1508)  issued  from  Wohlgemut's  establish- 
ment, as  we  must  call  it,  for  it  had  become  little  more 
than  a  factory.  The  painter  concerned  himself  with 
the  panels  of  the  altarpieces  alone  :  the  carving  was 
left  to  Stoss  and  his  assistants  and  pupils.  We  shall 
presently  return  to  the  subject  of  the  altarpiece  of 
Schwabach  and  its  connexion  with  the  one  at  St. 
Wolfgang  by  Michael  Pacher,  an  earlier  work  which 

lOI 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Stoss    must    have    known   and    more   or   less    copied 
from. 

Veit  Stoss's  first  business  at  Cracow  on  settling  there 
in  1477  was  to  undertake  the  carving  of  the  great  altar- 
piece  of  the  Marienkirche  in  that  town,  a  work  which 
required  twelve  years  for  its  completion.  Considered 
by  many  as  the  finest  of  the  German  retables,  we  may 
take  it  as  representative  of  the  general  arrangement  of 
this  class  of  work  in  the  southern  division  of  the 
empire.  One  of  the  largest  and  most  elaborate,  at 
least,  it  still,  although  restored  and  repainted,  presents 
in  essentials  its  original  condition.  As  the  church  and 
this  altar  in  particular  are  dedicated  to  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  subjects  should 
be  those  illustrative  of  her  life.  It  is  the  life  as  we 
know  it  in  the  language  of  the  Rosary,  of  the  Joyful, 
Sorrowful,  and  Glorious  mysteries.  Triptych  in 
arrangement,  the  high  central  shrine  rests  on  a  predella 
carved  with  the  gnarled  and  almost  leafless  branch- 
work  of  the  tree  of  Jesse,  bearing  figures  representative 
of  the  genealogy  of  the  Virgin.  The  principal  subject 
in  the  central  division  of  the  triptych  gives  us  her 
death,  or  at  least — for  it  is  an  unusual  method  of  repre- 
senting even  the  earlier  stage  of  the  Dormition — the 
last  phase  in  her  life  on  earth.  She  is  in  the  act  of 
gently  sinking  to  the  ground,  kneeling,  and  supported 
by  one  of  the  apostles,  surrounded  by  the  others  and 
some  holy  women.  Above,  still  in  the  central  division, 
is  the  Assumption,  beneath  pinnacled  canopy  work, 
and  above  this  again,  amongst  elaborate  architectural 
details,  figures  in  niches,  foliage,  borders,  and  other 
ornament.  The  wings  are  carved  in  low  relief — within, 
in  six  divisions  with  scenes  from  the  life  of  our  Lord, 
on  the  outer  sides  in  twelve  compartments  with  similar 
subjects,  mostly  of  the  Passion.  On  the  tomb  itself, 
in  the  Resurrection  scene,  is  the  monogram,  or  more 
properly  the  cipher,  ^  of  the  master. 
102 


I'LATE    in 


>    = 

c 


VEIT    STOSS 

Technically  we  have  here,  in  Stoss's  earliest  great 
work,  an  admirable  illustration  of  his  style  for  figures  in 
the  round,  and  in  low  relief.  Those  in  the  central  group 
are  somewhat  larger  than  life  size.  The  strongly  marked 
anatomy  of  the  heads  of  the  apostles,  the  long  bony 
hands  and  fingers  with  their  swollen  veins,  the  deeply 
cut  and  many-folded  tumultuous  draperies  completely 
concealing  the  figures,  the  style  of  the  hair  and  beards  ; 
and,  again,  the  slender,  small-busted  type,  and  costumes 
of  the  women  in  the  low  reliefs  of  the  wings,  are  all 
highly  characteristic  landmarks  upon  which  to  base 
conclusions  with  regard  to  other  work  attributed  to 
Stoss.  There  is  in  the  apostle  group  an  almost  wild 
oriental  type,  associated  with  the  artist's  own  tempera- 
ment. The  heads  are  those  of  ascetics,  impulsive,  filled 
with  enthusiasm,  rough  uncultured  men  for  the  most 
part.  The  women,  tender  and  lovable,  with  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  mother  of  Christ  herself  and  the  other 
women  who,  in  the  costumes  of  the  period,  are  merely 
burghers'  wives  or  daughters.  Taken  as  single  figures 
there  is  life  and  movement  in  the  expression  and 
attitudes  of  those  in  the  central  tableau.  Yet,  as  a 
composition,  it  has  the  faults  of  the  German  system  of 
assembling,  as  it  were,  a  number  of  puppets,  rather 
than,  as  in  Flemish  retables,  a  more  pictorial  perspec- 
tive method.  It  suggests  an  impression  of  a  stage  group- 
ing without  the  scenery.  There  is  a  disregard  of  any 
logical  arrangement,  except  a  general  decorative  effect. 
The  draperies  are  subordinated  to  this,  and  have  little 
relation  to  the  position  and  movements  of  the  figures 
they  cover.  But  no  one  will  dispute  the  poetical  treat- 
ment of  the  whole.  For,  if  the  eye  may  wander  from 
group  to  group,  from  panel  to  panel,  every  detail  is 
full  of  suggestiveness.  What  ideas,  indeed,  are  not 
evolved,  from  that  central  kneeling  figure,  what  sugges- 
tions relating  to  the  ending  of  that  earthly  life,  which  we 
are  left  to  fill  up  for  ourselves ! 

103 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Many  altarpieces,  single  figures,  and  panels  are  with 
more  or  less  certainty  attributed  to  Veit  Stoss.  Madonna 
statuettes  are  numerous,  the  Holy  Child,  as  a  rule  quite 
unclothed  and  lying,  according  to  the  fashion  generally 
prevailing,  somewhat  across  in  the  arms  of  His  mother. 
The  face  of  the  Virgin  is  almost  always  from  the  same 
model,  or  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say,  of  the  same 
accepted  type  :  very  long,  loose,  wavy  hair,  unfortunately 
often  crowned  with  a  monstrous  crown,  as  was  so  much 
the  fashion  not  only  in  sculpture,  but  in  graphic  repre- 
sentations generally.  It  would  be  impossible  to  give 
here  a  list  of  works  attributed  to  Stoss.  Their  variety 
also  is  very  great,  ranging  from  those  of  high  quality, 
as  the  Cracow  retable,  to  others  after  his  return  to 
Niirnberg,  of  very  indifferent  merit.  For  an  apprecia- 
tion of  his  style  at  his  best,  the  altarpiece  of  the  parish 
church  of  Bamberg,  representing  the  adoration  of  the 
Magi,  would  form  a  very  fair  example.  This  is  a 
quite  late  work  if  executed,  as  it  is  said,  about  1533, 
when  the  sculptor  would  have  been  at  least  eighty  years 
of  age.  Of  his  low  reliefs  we  may  class  amongst  his 
very  best  work  the  panels  in  limewood  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, now  in  the  Bavarian  National  Museum. 
The  influence  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  wherever  he 
may  have  derived  it,  is  strong  in  these,  and  from  the 
costumes  of  the  women  and  hats  of  the  men  we  must 
again  date  them  very  late  in  his  life :  not  earlier  than 
1520. 

With  no  intention  of  entering  into  its  artistic 
merits — indeed  with  a  difficulty  of  repressing  the  ex- 
pression of  a  feeling  of  wonderment  that  a  reputation 
should  be  founded  on  work  of  such  a  character — it 
would  be  impossible  to  pass  without  notice  the  famous 
Englische  Gruss  —  the  Angelical  Salutation  —  in  the 
form  of  a  Rosary  wreath,  with  more  than  life-sized 
central  figures,  hanging  from  the  vault  of  the  choir  of 
the  Lorenzkirche  at  Niirnberg.  These  hanging  pieces, 
104 


ri.ATE   Vlll 


HANGING   WKKAIH       THK   ANGEI.ICAI-  SAI.Ul  Al  ION.     1!N    \  KI  1    SI  ' 'ss 
SIXTEENTH  CENTl'RV 

CHUKCH    OK    ST.    I.AWRENCK. 


VEIT    STOSS 

and  other  Rosenkrdnze,  seemingly  attempts  to  copy, 
in  wood,  paintings  such  as  those  of  the  Cologne  school 
of  the  early  fifteenth  century,  enjoyed  great  popularity. 
The  arrangement  is  almost  childish  in  this  work  by 
Veit  Stoss  of  1517,  as  in  others  of  its  kind,  including 
the  one  by  Riemenschneider  in  the  church  of  Volkach. 
Apart  from  this  and  its  general  vulgarity,  neither  the 
drawing,  composition,  nor  execution  entitle  it  to  con- 
sideration as  a  work  of  art.  The  pose  of  the  two 
principal  figures  is  affected,  the  expression  of  the  faces 
unattractive,  the  hands  and  position  of  the  limbs  those 
of  an  artist's  lay-figure.  There  is  neither  style  nor 
consistency  in  the  treatment  of  the  draperies  ;  the  bust 
of  the  Almighty  at  the  top  is  almost  revolting  in  its  toy- 
like suggestion,,  the  rosary  paternoster  medallions  are 
gingerbread-like,  the  floating  angels  of  the  Christmas- 
tree  type.  These  and  other  details  are,  in  conjunction 
with  an  absence  of  any  redeeming  feature,  unaccount- 
able, except  from  the  point  of  view  of  playing  down  to 
the  level  of  popular  demands.  A  somewhat  similar 
work — at  least  on  similar  lines — is  the  Rosenkrantz 
tablet  in  the  Niirnberg  Museum.  Veit  Stoss  was  a 
great  maker  of  crucifixes.  The  best,  perhaps,  are  those 
of  the  high  altar  of  the  Lorenzkirche,  of  the  Spitals- 
kirche,  and  of  the  church  of  the  Ognissanti  in 
Florence. 

Whatever  may  be  the  undoubted  high  merit  of  such 
examples  as  the  retables  of  Cracow  and  of  Bamberg,  on 
the  other  hand,  if  we  are  to  accept  some  work  attributed 
to  him,  Veit  Stoss  descends  to  the  extreme  common- 
place, not  to  say  vulgarities,  and  to  a  pandering  to  the 
taste  in  devotional  representations  which  nothing  but 
the  chauvinism  of  his  countrymen  could  demand  to  be 
admired.  One  looks  with  astonishment  at  the  puerile 
taste  and  composition,  and  the  inferior  execution  of 
such  pieces  as  the  group  of  the  Coronation  of  the 
Virgin  in  the  Nurnberg  Museum  and  at  many  of  his 

105 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Madonnas,  for  example,  the  Maria  of  the  Stosshaus  or 
the  smirking  and  truly  wooden  Heilsbronn  Madonna 
now  in  the  Nurnberg  Museum.  It  is  indeed  puzzling 
to  compare  such  things  with  the  charming  etched  work 
of  the  master  :  with  the  Madonna  of  the  apple  (Bartsch 
No.  3),  the  St.  Genevieve  holding  a  lighted  candle,  or 
the  Piet^  (Bartsch  2),  all  of  which  have  a  close  relation- 
ship with  his  style  and  feeling  as  a  sculptor.  Veit 
Stoss  certainly  lived  to  a  great  age,  probably  at  least  to 
ninety-five.  In  private  life  he  seems  to  have  been  of  a 
troublesome,  quarrelsome  character :  so  much  so  that 
in  a  town  council  decree  he  is  called  an  irrig  und 
gesclireyig  Mann,  and  for  some  grave  offence  was  con- 
demned to  be  branded  on  both  cheeks.  In  his  last 
years  he  became  quite  blind,  and  died  between  the 
years  1530- 1540.  Of  the  many  figures  ascribed  to  Veit 
Stoss,  we  may  reserve  for  the  section  dealing  with  the 
work  of  unknown  German  sculptors  the  Eve  of  the 
Louvre,  the  St.  Roch  of  the  Church  of  the  Annunziata 
at  Florence,  and  the  crucifix  of  the  Ognissanti  at 
Florence.  There  will  be  naturally  some  comparisons 
between  his  style  and  that  of  Riemenschneider.  There 
is,  for  example,  a  St.  John  holding  a  chalice,  in  the 
Berlin  Museum,  which,  ascribed  to  him,  might  with 
more  reason  be  given  to  the  school  of  the  latter.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  do  full  justice  to  his  reputation 
from  every  point  of  view  without  very  numerous  illus- 
trations. Our  National  Art  Museum  at  Kensington 
contains  no  example  of  the  work  of  Veit  Stoss,  nor 
even,  for  authenticated  ones,  does  the  museum  of  the 
Louvre. 

Amongst  all  the  German  wood-carvers  of  the 
end  of  the  Gothic  period  there  is  no  more  interesting 
figure  than  that  of  the  Wurzburg  master,  Tillmann 
Riemenschneider.  The  interest  which  attaches  to  him 
is  all  the  greater  on  account  of  the  problems  which  are 
connected  with  the  attribution  to  him  of  certain  of  the 
106 


RIEMENSCHNEIDER 

finest  pieces  of  German  wood-carving.  These  questions 
involve  at  least  three  of  the  most  important  examples 
of  the  late  mediaeval  work.  They  affect  our  own 
museum  at  Kensington,  in  which  are  to  be  found  the 
charming  busts  of  Adam  and  Eve,  which  for  a  long 
time  were  labelled  as  the  work  of  Albert  Durer,  and 
the  group  of  SS.  Anne  and  Joachim:  the  Imperial 
Museum  of  Vienna,  which  possesses  the  painted  group 
of  three  figures  known  as  '  Fleeting  Life '  \Verganglich- 
keit):  the  Louvre  and  the  recently  acquired  so-called 
Venus  :  and  besides  these — perhaps  the  most  important 
with  regard  to  suggestion  of  style — the  altarpiece  of 
the  Lady  altar  of  Creglingen,  a  little  village  in  the 
valley  of  the  Tauber,  in  South  Germany.  Now,  it  is 
almost  solely  on  the  strength  of  these  masterpieces 
that  we  are  able  to  concede  so  high  a  position  as  a 
wood-carver  to  Riemenschneider.  It  is  true  that  we 
have  other  work  undoubtedly  by  his  hand  which  places 
him  on  a  level  as  a  stone  or  marble  sculptor  with 
Vischer  or  Krafft,  his  contemporaries,  and  that  there 
are  a  considerable  number  of  altarpieces,  such  as  those 
of  Rothenburg,  Dettwang,  or  Miinnerstadt,  of  statuettes 
and  other  groups,  sufficient  to  establish  a  high  reputa- 
tion. Nevertheless,  the  main  interest  lies  with  the 
greater  works  just  mentioned,  whose  authorship  remains 
at  the  least  doubtful.  It  would  be  impossible,  within 
our  present  limits,  to  present  the  whole  case,  and  it  must 
be  admitted  that  the  consensus  of  opinion  is,  so  far,  in 
favour  of  Riemenschneider.  Generally  speaking,  how- 
ever, there  is  nothing  compelling  acceptance,  and  it 
would  be  wiser  to  leave  them  in  the  category  of  those 
other  works  in  painting,  engraving,  and  sculpture  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  designate  as  by  the  Master  of 
such  and  such  a  subject :  as  in  the  case  also  of  the 
Nurnberg  Madonna,  to  which  we  shall  presently  devote 
considerable  attention. 

The  Wurzburg  school  stands,  with  that  of  Niirn- 

107 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

berg,  in  a  singularly  independent  position,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  strong  influence  which  it  exercised  far 
and  wide.  It  is  unfortunate  that  our  positive  informa- 
tion concerning  the  works  which  emanated  from  it 
should  be  so  scanty,  because  a  considerable  number  of 
names,  at  least,  can  be  gathered  from  the  archives  of 
the  city.  Amongst  them  is  Riemenschneider,  but  it  is 
by  no  means  safe  to  attach  his  name  to  everything, 
even  of  the  best,  which  bears  the  impress  of  the  school. 
Certainly  none  is  more  widely  quoted  as  representing 
lower  Franconian  sculptural  art.  Thilo,  Teyl,  Dile — 
Riemenschneider,  or  Rymschneider,  or  Master  Dill, 
with  other  variations,  as  we  find  him  named  in  docu- 
ments and  archives  of  Wurzburg,  appears  to  have 
belonged  to  a  family  of  Saxon  origin  which  had 
established  itself  at  Wurzburg.  The  date  of  his  birth 
is  unknown,  but  as  he  was  said  to  be  a  little  over 
seventy  years  of  age  in  1531  when  he  died,  and  as  he 
was  inscribed  as  an  associate  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Luke 
in  1483,  we  may  take  it  that  he  was  born  about  1460. 
From  other  evidence  it  is  probable  that  his  birthplace 
was  Osterode,  in  the  Hartz  district,  that  mountainous 
chain  in  North  Germany  that  we  associate  with  the 
famous  Brocken.  Of  his  civic  life  as  a  burgher  of  his 
adopted  town  information  is  abundant,  but  as  we  are  not 
now  particularly  concerned  with  biographical  details,  we 
need  not  stop  to  consider  this  at  length.  It  will  suffice 
to  mention  his  marriage  and  early  widowerhood,  and 
that  he  occupied  high  positions  in  the  city  council  and 
became  Burgomaster.  A  three-quarter  length  profile 
portrait  of  Master  Dill,  probably  the  work  of  his  son 
Jorg,  dated  15 19,  is  in  the  possession  of  the  Archaeo- 
logical Society  of  Wurzburg,  a  medallion  in  the 
parish  church  of  Creglingen,  and  a  bust  in  the  Pieta 
of  the  church  at  Maidbronn.  In  accordance  with  the 
custom  of  his  time  he  began,  on  the  conclusion  of 
his  apprenticeship,  his  JVanderJdhre,  and  probably 
108 


RIEMENSCHNEIDER 

travelled  principally  through  Franconia,  Suabia,  and 
in  Poland,  no  doubt  devoting  considerable  time  to 
the  art  centre  of  Niirnberg.  But  we  have  no  certain 
information  where,  or  under  what  master,  he  may  have 
studied,  and  can  only  conjecture  the  influences  which 
went  to  form  his  style.  He  must  have  been  familiar 
with  Wohlgemut's  studio,  possibly  even  a  fellow-pupil 
with  Diirer,  whose  designs  he  afterwards  followed  in 
more  than  one  of  his  altarpieces,  and,  whatever  per- 
sonal qualities  were  afterwards  developed,  his  early 
training  was  strongly  influenced  at  Niirnberg.  But 
this  would  hardly  have  been  through  Adam  Krafft, 
whose  first  dated  work  is  in  1490,  when  Riemen- 
schneider  had  been  already  some  time  a  master.  Veit 
Stoss,  though  somewhat  an  older  man,  he  would  have 
known  also  ;  but  however  much  similarity  in  treatment 
we  may  find  between  the  two,  these  are  due  to  the 
following  by  both  of  the  same  traditions  rather  than  to 
personal  relations  and  community  of  feeling.  The 
temperaments,  indeed,  of  the  two  men  and  their 
methods  of  expression  were  widely  different.  By  nature, 
Stoss  was  rough  and  undisciplined,  as  was  his  charac- 
ter in  general ;  wanting  in  refinement,  indifferent  to  a 
research  of  beauty,  his  work  giving  no  evidence  of  a 
nobility  of  feeling,  descending  to  the  commonplace  and 
even  to  vulgarity :  his  madonnas  often  coarse  and  of 
pure  peasant  type.  Riemenschneider  shows  in  his 
work  an  amiable  disposition,  almost  womanly  refine- 
ment, sincerity  of  purpose,  and  a  tender  sympathy  with 
the  sentiment  he  endeavours  to  illustrate.  His  saintly 
women  are  chosen  from  an  idealized  type  of  young, 
fresh,  and  innocent  German  womanhood,  with  an  open 
candid  expression  from  which  a  certain  smiling  coquet- 
tishness  in  no  way  detracts.  We  must  not,  however, 
forget  the  sources  which  influenced  him  in  this  respect. 
He  was  fond  of  clothing  his  holy  women  in  the  costume 
of  the  time,  whether  of  the  gorgeously  apparelled  lady 

109 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

of  fashion  or  with  the  plain  wimple  and  stuffed  head- 
dress, or  of  the  serving  maid  as  in  his  St.  Martha. 
If  we  are  to  accept  the  attribution  to  him  of  the  dis- 
puted Eve  or  the  Magdalen,  he  was  not,  in  his  later 
years  at  least,  averse  to  the  nude,  but  his  inclination 
towards  naturalism  would  never  have  allowed  him  to 
become  coarse  and  offensive  as  it  pleased  others  of  his 
contemporary  wood  sculptors  to  be.  In  common  with 
the  practice  of  the  Lower  Franconian  and  Suabian 
schools  generally,  his  work,  even  for  altarpieces,  was 
limited,  except  for  low  reliefs,  to  single  figures  and 
small  groups  arranged  in  rows,  without  attempting 
dramatic  effect  as  a  whole.  This  may  be  said  without 
excepting  even  such  compositions  as  the  Creglingen  or 
Rothenburg  retables.  We  do  not  expect  from  him 
strong  stagelike  treatment.  A  group  such  as  the  Anne 
and  Joachim  fragment  at  Kensington  has  plenty  of 
story  to  tell  in  a  quiet  way,  and  the  greatness  of  his 
talent  is  fully  exemplified  in  the  twelve  seated  apostle 
figures  in  the  Bavarian  National  Museum.  These  are 
figures,  fragments  no  doubt  of  an  altarpiece,  than 
which  no  others  could  be  better  chosen  as  typical  of 
Riemenschneider,  in  character,  in  design,  and  in  hand- 
ling. They  are,  of  course,  intimately  connected  with 
the  ascription  of  the  Creglingen  retable. 

The  German  schools  of  the  little  masters  of 
engraving  were,  in  the  early  days  at  least  of  Riemen- 
schneider's  apprenticeship,  still  in  their  infancy.  To 
Schongauer  in  particular  must  be  traced  something 
of  the  type  of  the  women's  faces  which  is  almost 
constant  in  his  altarpieces  and  in  his  single  figures, 
from  the  Eve,  in  stone,  of  Wiirzburg,  to  the  Mag- 
dalen of  Munnerstadt.  We  have  no  documentary 
evidence  of  his  JVanderjdhre,  but  if  he  did  not 
actually  travel  in  Italy  or  Flanders  he  must  have 
been  well  acquainted  with  the  work  of  the  great 
masters  of  his  time.     Prague  was  not  far  off,  and  the 

I  lO 


RIEMENSCHNEIDER 

early  Bohemian  school  of  painting  would  have  been 
familiar  to  him.  He  must  have  seen  many  great 
Flemish  retables  even  in  his  own  country,  but  as  a  rule 
he  did  not  attempt  to  imitate  their  pictorial  style, 
reserving  for  the  wings,  and  in  lower  relief,  his  skill  as 
a  narrator  of  stories.  As  an  artist  Riemenschneider 
was  faithful  to  the  last  to  Gothic  traditions.  Exclud- 
ing such  a  disputed  piece  as  the  Vienna  Allegory,  there 
is  hardly  a  trace  of  Italian  influence  and  the  Renais- 
sance. Throughout  all  his  work  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  anything  resembling  the  undisciplined  independ- 
ence of  Veit  Stoss.  It  is  dignified,  calm,  logical, 
restrained.  He  never  overdoes — as  was  so  common  a 
fault  of  his  time — the  expression  of  the  painful,  har- 
rowing sides  of  the  sacred  scenes.  In  general,  his 
figures,  so  far  as  the  draperies  permit  us  to  characterize 
them,  are  slim  in  proportions,  the  shoulders  narrow 
and  sloping,  the  heads  of  the  men  large,  and  rendered 
larger  by  the  wiglike  profusion  of  curling  hair :  those 
of  the  women,  on  the  contrary,  small.  The  cheek-bones 
are  exaggerated  in  prominence,  the  hands  long  and 
rather  thin,  the  veins  strongly  marked,  the  fingers  also 
long  and  delicately  formed,  but  the  hands  small  almost 
to  distortion  in  his  later  w^ork.  The  women's  figures 
have  the  same  straight  falling  shoulders,  long  oval 
faces,  somewhat  almond  eyes,  small  breasts,  very 
commonly  the  little  finger  bent  over  the  next  one,  the 
feet  rarely  showing.  The  heads  of  the  evangelists  in 
the  Berlin  Museum  are  decidedly  too  large.  Often, 
especially  in  the  late  work,  the  contour  of  the  face  runs 
from  the  prominent  cheek-bone  in  a  sharp  narrow 
angle  to  the  chin.  And  for  the  younger  type  we  have 
as  in  the  St.  Totnan,  St.  Kilian's  deacon,  that  con- 
stantly recurring  sweet-smiling,  rather  sly,  pretty  boy 
or  blarneying  youth. 

What  cannot  fail  to  strike  the  student  of  figure 
work    of  the    Riemenschneider   school    is   the   hardly 

III 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

ever  varying  type  of  face  either  for  the  men  or  the 
women.  We  might  say  that  they  were  all  from 
one  model,  but  that  it  is  not  likely  that  the  living 
model  was  used  at  all.  His  men  have  all  the  same 
strong  family  resemblance,  as  of  one  stock,  from  the 
grandfather  down  to  the  youngest  grandchild.  Not 
only  so,  but  the  women  belong  to  the  same  family 
also.  There  is  a  wearisome,  ever- recurring  repetition 
of  the  same  conventionally  curling  locks,  flowing  in 
wiglike  fashion  over  the  shoulders,  but  for  this  we 
must  blame  the  exigencies  of  the  prevailing  taste.  For 
the  Madonnas,  though  the  type  of  face  is  so  constant 
in  form  and  expression,  there  would  seem  to  be  two 
varieties,  but  mostly  a  dark  round  face  with  broad  fore- 
head, sometimes  bareheaded,  sometimes  with  a  veil 
simply  draped  on  one  side.  The  sentiment  expressed 
is  one  of  youthful  grace  and  humility.  The  Holy  Child 
is  also  always  of  the  same  type :  curly-headed,  lying 
across  on  the  right  or  left  arm  of  His  mother  indiffer- 
ently, the  upper  leg  bent  upwards.  But  all  this  is  not 
original,  or  confined  to  Riemenschneider,  but  merely 
the  prevailing  style  of  the  time.  On  the  other  hand 
there  is  a  treatment  of  the  mouth  in  his  holy  women 
which  is  decidedly  characteristic.  The  eyes,  somewhat 
diverging,  have  a  languishing  expression.  The  neck, 
thick  and  sturdy  in  the  men  in  conformity  with  the 
German  fashion  in  art  of  the  time,  is  thin  and  graceful 
in  his  women  figures,  and  in  the  younger  men.  One 
mi^ht  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  same  model  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Magdalen  of  Munnerstadt  and  the  St. 
John  the  Evangelist  of  the  Berlin  Museum.  Generally, 
the  influence  of  Wohlgemut  in  the  Madonna  figures  is 
strong.  The  older  women  follow  the  customary  types. 
If  the  name  of  Riemenschneider  is  to  be  attached 
to  the  St.  Anne  group  in  the  museum  at  Kensing- 
ton it  will  be  in  evidence  of  masterly  execution,  of  a 
technical  use  of  his  chisel  with  which  no  comparison 

I  12 


RIEMENSCHNEIDER 

can  be  made  in  any  other  German  work  of  the  kind. 
The  study  of  the  draperies  is  important.  There  is,  of 
course,  first,  the  conventional  type  proper  to  the  figures 
of  the  apostles  as  we  find  it  in  those  in  the  Munich 
Museum  and  in  the  Creglingen  altarpiece.  Generally, 
they  would  seem  to  be  of  a  thin,  somewhat  stiffened, 
linen  material,  the  long  pleats  crinkled  up,  as  it  were, 
and  breaking  off  at  acute  angles  :  forming  in  this  way 
a  decorative  arrangement  of  lines  which  seemed  to  hit 
the  taste  of  the  time,  but  led  to  extremes  of  exaggera- 
tion which,  according  to  our  ideas,  are  unmeaning  and 
irritating,  besides  being  monotonous.  They  form  a 
series  of  plane  surfaces  set  up  at  various  angles  :  a  suc- 
cession of  numberless  small  spiny  folds.  The  idea  is 
conveyed  of  a  suddenly  arrested  movement  converted 
into  a  frozen  rigidity.  The  Zwickau  Pieta,  which  is  else- 
where noticed  (pp.  86,  138),  is  an  example  of  an  admirable 
work  in  which  this  system  is  carried  to  excess.  The 
whole  question  concerning  it  is,  however,  one  in  which 
the  styles  of  the  wood  and  copper-plate  engravers  of  the 
time,  and  that  of  the  Flemish,  Cologne,  and  other 
schools  of  painting,  have  to  be  taken  into  account. 

Riemenschneider  was  probably  not  strong  in  the 
anatomy  of  the  undraped  figure.  The  time  had  not 
arrived — for  him  at  any  rate — of  emancipation  from 
ecclesiastical  traditions  and  restrictions.  Even  if  we 
allow  him  the  authorship  of  the  Eve  of  the  Louvre, 
his  position  would  not  be  a  high  one,  and  the  stone 
Eve  of  Wurzburg  cathedral  has  no  claims  for  con- 
sideration from  this  point  of  view^  On  the  other  hand, 
the  head,  at  any  rate,  of  the  masterly  stone  sepulchral 
effigy  of  Bishop  Rudolf  von  Scherenberg  in  the 
cathedral  of  Wurzburg  is  apparently  evidence  of  con- 
summate knowledge  and  truthfulness.  But  may  not 
this  be  due  to  some  extent  to  the  practice  of  making 
post-7nortem  casts  which  was  becoming  usual  in  late 
mediaeval    times  ?      Riemenschneider's     sculpture    in 

H  113 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

stone  hardly  comes  within  the  scope  of  this  book.     As 
a  matter  of  fact,  though  it  cannot  be  altogether  left  out 
of  account  by  the  student  or  admirer  of  his  work  in 
wood,  the  relationship  is  slight,  and  points  of  contact 
would  not  be  easy  to  determine.     For  my  own  part  I 
can  attach  little  value  to  the  endeavour  to  establish  a 
theory,    as  one   critic    at  least    has  done,    connecting 
Riemenschneider   with    the    Master   of  the    Niirnberg 
Madonna  through  some  analogies  of  costume  with  his 
sepulchral  effigy  of  the  Countess  Dorothea  von  Wer- 
theim  at  Griinsfeld.     It  was  to  stone  sculpture  that  he 
seems  first  to  have   applied    himself,  and  one  of  the 
earliest  pieces  from  his  hand — the  tombstone  of  Prince- 
Bishop  Rudolf,  of  which  there  is  a  cast  in  the  Kensing- 
ton   Museum — would   of  itself  suffice   to    assure   his 
reputation.     I  am  free  to  admit  that  I  have  derived  no 
assistance  concerning  the  questions  which  have  arisen 
of  the  authorship  of  some  important  works  attributed 
to  Riemenschneider  from  comparison  with  the  style  or 
technique  of  his  work  in  stone. 

We  may  now  turn  to  the  retable  of  the  Herrgotts- 
kapelle  at  Creglingen,  an  example  which,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  has  been  accepted  as  typical  of  the  style 
of  Riemenschneider  (of  this  there  should  be  no 
doubt),  and,  on  the  other  hand,  is  amongst  those 
pieces  about  which  reasonable  scepticism  may  be 
permitted  as  to  his  authorship.  The  date  of  the 
work  is  probably  from  about  1495  to  1499,  and  an 
ascription  therefore  to  Riemenschneider  must  in  the 
first  place  put  out  of  the  question  the  date  1487 
carved  on  it,  for  Riemenschneider  was  then  an  apprentice 
at  Wiirzburg,  having  gone  there  in  1483.  In  any  case 
it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  most  important  work 
of  both  Stoss  and  Riemenschneider  was  executed  at  a 
very  youthful  age.  The  central  group  represents  the 
Assumption  of  the  Virgin,  the  figures  a  little  less  than 
life  size.  The  apostles,  some  kneeling,  are  gathered  in 
114 


ri.AlE  IX 


-wasSSC^ 


(JROUP.     ST.   ANNK   AND   ST.   JOACHIM.     SUABIAN   SCHOOI. 
EARLY  SIXTKKNTH  CKNTURY 

VICTORIA    ANIJ    Al.llKKT    MfiKl  M 
CACiK    116 


THE    CREGLINGEN    ALTARPIECE 

two  groups  below,  watching  the  ascent  borne  up  and 
attended  by  angels.  On  the  wings,  in  rather  high 
relief,  are  scenes  in  the  life  of  our  Lord,  and  on  a 
panel  is  an  extremely  characteristic  group  of  two  angels 
floating  in  the  air  upholding  the  miraculous  Veronica 
handkerchief.  The  wing  panels  with  the  angelical 
salutation  have  neither  original  character  nor  are  they 
good  in  execution.  In  the  Annunciation  scene,  on  the 
left  wing  of  the  triptych,  the  following  of  a  master  of 
painting  such  as  the  Maitre  des  Mouliiis  in  the  same 
subject  is  apparent  in  the  composition  generally,  and 
even  in  such  details  as  the  disposition  of  the  draperies 
and  the  flow  of  the  train  of  the  Virgin,  the  form  and 
position  of  the  bed,  the  book,  the  reading-desk  and 
other  accessories.  But  the  two  groups  of  the  apostles 
are  admirable  in  the  expression  of  the  figures  taken 
separately,  and  in  the  treatment  of  the  draperies.  The 
retable,  which  measures,  over  all,  about  21  feet  in 
height  by  10  in  width,  with  the  wings  open,  is  not 
painted  nor  was  it  intended  to  be,  and  although  we 
have  many  examples  of  the  sculptor's  painted  and 
gilded  retables  and  figures,  we  have  no  knowledge 
what  may  have  been  his  part  in  this  decoration. 

As  the  altarpiece  of  Creglingen  was  to  be  left  un- 
coloured,  the  carving  had  to  be  worked  up  to  the 
highest  perfection  of  finish.  In  some  other  cases  bad 
workmanship  is,  to  some  extent,  concealed.  One  finds 
too,  not  unfrequently,  these  carved  works  cleaned  of 
the  original  polychrome,  and  redaubed  with  modern 
painting.  Indeed  we  should  be  grateful  that  we  may 
now  admire  in  the  pure  surface  of  the  wood  such 
admirable  appropriateness  to  the  material  and  per- 
fection of  execution  as  in  a  group  which  the  museum 
at  Kensington  possesses.  This  is  a  fragment  from  a 
Sippenaltar  with  the  figures  of  the  parents  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin. 

A   very    few    descriptive    remarks   are    needed    to 

115 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

accompany  the  illustration  here  given  (Plate  ix.). 
It  is  a  portion,  no  doubt  one  half,  of  an  arrangement 
very  popular  in  Germany  known  as  a  Sippenaltar, 
or  Anna  selbdritt  group.  Elsewhere  the  term  Holy 
Family  is,  it  is  well  known,  usually  applied  to  the 
Virgin  and  Child,  St.  John  Baptist,  and  St.  Joseph. 
The  Anna  selbdritt  groups  are  very  frequently  found, 
the  main  idea  being  St.  Anne  teaching  her  daughter  to 
read.  But  there  is  generally  the  strange  inconsistency 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  grown  up  and  holding  the  Holy 
Child,  even  if  herself  standing  or  sitting  on  the  lap  of 
her  mother.  We  shall  find  this,  for  instance,  later  on, 
in  the  case  of  a  group  in  the  Kensington  Museum  there 
called  English  work  (Plate  xxxviii.).  In  an  example 
in  the  Erfurt  cathedral  by  Riemenschneider,  or  of  his 
school,  Anna  holds  the  Holy  Child  on  one  arm,  and  on 
the  other  a  doll-like  crowned  figure  of  His  mother  with 
an  open  book  on  her  lap.  In  another,  in  the  Bavarian 
National  Museum,  the  elder  woman  is  seated,  the  Holy 
Child  stands  on  her  knee,  and  the  Virgin,  grown  up, 
is  seated  on  her  other  knee,  learning  to  read  from  the 
usual  open  book.  Often  again  the  holy  women  are 
seated  side  by  side,  the  Child  playing  between  them. 
A  divided  piece,  of  which,  however,  the  two  halves  are 
still  existing,  is  in  the  Bavarian  National  Museum 
(No.  1247).  This,  also,  is  of  the  Franconian  school, 
and  here  we  have  St.  Anne  and  St.  Joachim,  St. 
Joseph,  Salome,  and  Alpheus,  but  the  Infant  is  absent, 
and  it  is  not  a  reading  lesson.  The  Kensington  group 
(Plate  IX.),  if  by  Riemenschneider,  may  be  quite  late  in 
date:  the  costume  and  stuffed  headdress  pointing  to 
some  time  between  1495  and  1520.  It  was  at  one  time 
attributed  to  Georg  Syrlin  of  Ulm,  and  indeed  it  is  not 
easy  to  dissociate  the  Suabian  and  Wiirzburg  schools.  A 
piece  composed  in  an  identically  similar  manner  is  said 
to  be  in  the  possession  of  Prince  OttingenAVallenstein. 
As  an  example  of  this  particular  side  of  German  wood- 
116 


RIEMENSCHN  EIDER 

carving  of  the  late  Gothic  period,  the  Kensington  group, 
by  whomever  executed,  is  unsurpassed,  and  must  be 
ranked  among  the  masterpieces  of  the  art.  The  figures 
are  human  beings,  portraits,  it  may  be  said  perhaps, 
from  life  models.  The  drapery  no  longer  conceals  the 
admirably  posed  figure  and  arms  of  the  seated  woman, 
and  though  we  may  regret  the  still  somewhat  tormented 
folds  falling  in  veil-like  form  from  the  headdress,  yet 
even  these  are  masterpieces  in  that  particular  style. 
And  above  all  to  be  remarked  are  the  clean  sharp-cut 
handling  and  precision  of  the  chisel,  the  understanding 
and  right  use  of  the  material,  absolutely  to  be  dis- 
tinguished in  this  case  from  the  technique  of  stone 
sculpture,  and  the  wonderful  treatment  of  the  hands  of 
St.  Anne,  to  which,  in  wood,  for  their  art,  I  can  only 
compare  those  of  the  Niirnberg  Madonna. 

Comparisons  have  been  made  between  this  figure  and 
the  stone  monument  of  the  Countess  Dorothea  von  Wer- 
theim  by  Riemenschneider.  There  are  analogies,  it  is 
true,  in  the  form  of  headdress  and  in  the  drapery  folds, 
but  nothing  could  be  less  convincing  by  way  of  proof 
of  the  identity  of  the  sculptor  than  the  general  feeling. 
The  designer  of  the  one,  great  as  he  might  be  accord- 
ing to  older  traditions,  is  still  wedded  to  convention, 
with  no  sign  that  he  has  yet  taken  advantage  of  the 
new  realism.  The  other  has  worked  straight  from 
nature.  The  question  is,  are  they  or  can  they  be  the 
same  man  ? 

A  work  more  definitely  characteristic  of  Riemen- 
schneider's  style,  and  in  some  ways  a  finer  piece  than 
the  Creglingen  retable,  is  the  one  known  as  the  altar 
of  the  Precious  Blood  in  the  church  of  St.  James  at 
Rothenburg,  in  the  Tauber  valley  (Plate  x.).  We  need 
take  the  central  group  of  figures  alone — they  are  those 
of  Our  Lord  and  the  Apostles  at  the  Last  Supper — and 
compare  them,  for  example,  with  the  twelve  apostles 
of  the  Munich  Museum.     They  are  a  little  less  than 

117 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

life  size,  very  fine  indeed  in  composition  and  in 
technical  execution,  and  far  outweigh  in  importance 
the  low  reliefs  on  the  wings  and  the  long  spiny 
pinnacle  work  and  other  ornament  characteristic  of 
late  German  Gothic.  Although  of  a  different  character 
from  the  scenic  grouping  of  Flemish  retables,  the 
arrangement  has  a  certain  dramatic  force,  the  natural- 
istic figures  seemingly  engaged  in  an  animated  con- 
versation with  Our  Lord  and  with  each  other.  There 
is  an  earnest  solemnity  in  the  figures  of  these  men, 
all  with  that  family  likeness  already  remarked  upon, 
the  somewhat  too  large  heads,  the  flowing  curly  hair, 
and  all,  except  four,  bearded.  There  is  but  one  of  a 
different  type :  a  rounder,  fuller,  shaven  face.  The 
middle  figure,  standing  in  the  foreground,  and  carrying 
a  purse,  of  course  is  Judas.  The  exposed  parts  of  the 
figures — the  hands  and  feet — are  of  the  best  style,  the 
draperies  of  soft  thin  stuff's,  of  the  prevailing  type  and 
not  exaggerated.  In  its  intense  naturalism  this  fine 
altarpiece  may  indeed  be  called  truly  representative  of 
German  work  of  the  kind,  of  southern  German  or 
Suabian  origin.  From  documentary  evidence  it  may 
be  confidently  assigned  to  Riemenschneider,  and  we 
can  be  well  content  to  accept  it  as  an  example  of  the 
best  work  of  this  class  of  his  school.  At  the  same 
time,  in  several  other  cases,  there  is  no  obligation  to 
go  further. 

Still  without  positive  authentication,  and  yet  of 
even  more  value  in  the  endeavour  to  lay  down  a  type 
in  which  we  may  reasonably  recognize  the  style  of 
Riemenschneider  not  only  as  the  wood  was  left  by 
the  chisel,  but  also  with  the  full  addition  of  colour 
and  gilding,  is  a  charming  shrine  with  predella,  in 
the  Munich  Museum  (No.  1330),  (Plate  xi.).  In  the 
centre  are  three  nearly  life-sized  statuettes,  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  St.  John  the  Baptist,  and  St.  Sebastian.  It 
is,  of  course,  of  no  particular  consequence  that  we 
118 


\l.l  AkPIICI        ';1RMA\.     KIFTKKNIH    f  i- XHKN 

■ILNICH    MfSElM 


^iX 


I'.VXKI.S.     ASCUri;! 

MUNICH 


RIEMENSCHNEIDER 

find  them  so  grouped,  and  we  may  consider  them  as 
single  figures.  The  wings  have,  in  low  relief,  the  sub- 
jects taken  from  Schongauer's  and  Diirer's  engravings 
to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made :  the  baptism 
of  Christ  after  Schongauer  (Bartsch  8),  the  decollation 
after  Diirer  (Bartsch  126).  In  passing  we  may  note 
the  decapitated  body  of  St.  John  Baptist  clothed, 
as  it  were,  in  a  curly  maillot  of  hair,  as  we  shall 
find  presently  the  Magdalen  in  the  Miinnerstadt  altar- 
piece.  The  Madonna  statuette  is  of  the  style  which 
we  should  wish  to  characterize  as  typical  of  Riemen- 
schneider.  Simple  and  unaffected,  sweet  in  expression, 
smiling,  with  the  grace  and  charm  in  their  German  way 
almost  of  an  early  French  fourteenth-century  Madonna 
group,  both  Mother  and  Child  are  of  a  refinementwithout 
mannerisms,  that  would  be  difficult  to  match  in  any- 
thing of  the  kind  which  has  come  down  to  us.  All 
three  figures  would  well  bear  more  detailed  description. 
They  represent  the  religious  art  of  Germany  in  the  hands 
of  a  master  born  and  nurtured  in  Gothic  traditions 
at  a  period  when  many  influences  were  at  work, 
portending  changes  of  an  absolutely  revolutionary 
character,  and  are  in  themselves  standing  evidences 
of  the  effect  of  these  changes  at  the  close  of  his  career 
when  the  old  order  was  so  soon  to  be  utterly  and 
entirely  displaced  by  the  new.  The  date  of  the  work 
can  hardly  be  later  than  1515. 

We  must  pass  by  the  third  very  fine  altarpiece 
ascribed  to  Riemenschneider — that  of  the  Holy  Cross 
at  Detwang,  remarking  only  the  crucifix  as  an  example 
of  his  work  of  that  kind,  and  come  to  the  one  of  the 
parish  church  of  Munnerstadt  in  the  same  neighbour- 
hood. We  have  here  a  work  which  can  be  authenti- 
cated from  the  archives  of  the  town,  and  one  of 
Riemenschneider's  earliest  productions  when  he  could 
hardly  have  been  more  than  thirty — perhaps  only 
twenty-five— years  old.     It  is,  in  fact,  the  earliest  of 

119 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

which  there  exists  documentary  evidence  of  date,  and 
it  is  not  altogether  unimportant  to  note — in  relation 
to  the  principal  figure — that  the  freestone  Eve  of 
Wiirzburg  cathedral  is  nearly  contemporary.  The 
altar  is  dedicated  to  St  Mary  Magdalen,  and  we  seem 
to  have  in  it  the  mixed  histories  of  the  Magdalen  of 
the  gospels,  of  Mary  the  sister  of  Lazarus,  and  the 
legend  of  the  Penitent  of  the  desert.  Portions  of  this 
altarpiece  were  dispersed  about  a  hundred  years  ago, 
and  we  shall  only  concern  ourselves  with  the  central 
figure  now  in  the  Munich  Museum  (Plate  xii.).  This 
is  the  Magdalen  of  Munnerstadt — a  figure  standing 
almost  on  tiptoe,  with  hands  clasped,  the  face  of 
the  type  which  is,  or  should  be,  associated  with 
Riemenschneider's  Madonnas  and  women  figures — for 
example,  with  the  Assumption  of  Creglingen — long 
ringlets  streaming  over  the  shoulders,  the  body  almost 
entirely  clothed  with  a  tight-fitting  maillot,  as  it  were,  of 
silky  curls,  leaving  only  the  bosoms,  feet,  and  hands  ex- 
posed. The  idea  is  curious.  It  can  hardly  be  asserted 
that  at  any  period  of  his  career  there  is  evidence  of 
intelligent  study  of  Italian  art  or  models  on  the  part 
of  the  German  sculptor.  Yet  this  figure  suggests,  in 
pose  and  in  the  treatment  of  the  limbs,  the  follow- 
ing of  Italian  influence  :  for  instance,  Donatello's  John 
the  Baptist  in  the  Church  of  the  Frari  at  Venice,  or 
is  to  be  compared  with  such  a  type  as  Benedetto  da 
Majano's  Magdalen.  This  last  the  Italian  master 
presents  as  an  aged  emaciated  figure,  clothed  in  long 
flowing  hair,  with  a  suffering  expression  :  the  attitude 
and  clasped  hands,  however,  are  similar.  But  the 
German  Magdalen  is  plump,  smiling,  graceful,  made 
up,  as  it  were,  in  travesty.  If  devotional,  the  feeling 
is  expressed  in  a  different  way,  though  one  is  not  much 
surprised  that  in  a  later  age  those  responsible  for  the 
Munnerstadt  altarpiece  considered  the  figure  to  be 
inappropriate,  and  caused  it  to  be  removed. 
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RIEMENSCHNEIDER 

The  tombstone  of  Tillmann  Riemenschneider  was 
discovered  in  1822  in  the  course  of  some  reparations 
to  the  churchyard  near  the  cathedral  of  Wurzburg. 
The  master  is  represented  in  his  official  costume  as  a 
member  of  the  City  Council.  The  inscription  runs  : 
'Anno  D°'  Mcccccxxxj  am  abent  Kiliani  starb  der 
ersam  und  Kunstreich  Tilmann  Rimenschneider  Bild- 
hauer  burger  zu  wurczburg  dem  got  gnedig  sey 
Amen.'     Beneath  is  a  shield  on  which  is  the  sculptor's 

mark  or  cipher  ^t. 

The  so-called  busts  of  Adam  and  Eve  in  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  seem  to  have  been  ob- 
tained about  fifty  years  ago,  and  were  then,  and  for 
many  years  after,  said  to  be  the  work  of  Albert  Diirer. 
Mr.  Hungerford  Pollen's  official  catalogue,  published 
in  1874,  which,  however  much  out  of  date,  still  remains 
the  only  catalogue,  or  even  list  of  the  woodwork  of  the 
museum,  says  that  these  busts  were  '  probably  executed 
from  some  sketch  or  drawing  of  Diirer,  not  by  that 
artist  himself,  whose  works  of  sculpture  are  exceedingly 
scarce.'  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  forty  years 
ago  very  little  attention  had  been  paid  to  German  wood- 
carving,  and  such  names  as  Riemenschneider  and  Meit 
were  unknown,  in  England  at  least.  Whether  these 
small  busts  represent  our  first  parents,  and  whether 
they  are  completed  works  in  their  present  form,  or 
fragments  of  full-length  figures,  will  not  affect  our 
judgment  that  they  are  masterly  in  idea  and  execution 
to  the  highest  degree.  Both  are  represented  in  the 
first  bloom  of  youth,  Adam  with  an  intense  earnestness 
of  expression,  the  eyes  large  and  wide  set,  the  contour 
of  the  face  diminishing  from  the  cheek-bones  in  a 
somewhat  acute  angle  to  the  chin,  the  mouth  and  lips 
of  the  utmost  delicacy  of  modelling,  the  chin  dimpled, 
the  ears  partly  showing  under  the  thickly  curling 
masses  of   hair  which    almost   conceal    the    forehead. 

121 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

There  is  a  thoughtful,  melancholy,  almost  worried 
expression.  Clearly,  here,  there  is  Italian  influence, 
and  evidence  of  more  than  superficial  knowledge  and 
training.  Yet  there  was  reason  in  the  early  con- 
nexion (to  call  it  no  more)  with  Diirer :  even  Van 
Eyck,  in  these  two  figures,  would  not  be  so  very 
far  a  cry.  Eve,  again,  is  a  mere  girl,  hardly  developed, 
sweet  smiling,  full  of  intelligence,  her  hair  divided 
over  the  forehead  and  gathered  in  a  great  twist  round 
the  head,  the  eyes  and  mouth  those  of  a  twin  sister 
to  Adam.  In  the  modelling  and  general  treatment  of 
eyes,  eyebrows,  and  lips,  there  is,  notwithstanding,  a 
curious  divergence  which  cannot  be  passed  over  in 
the  argument. 

These  two  most  important  works  are  now  labelled 
as  by  Riemenschneider,  and  it  must  be  allowed 
that  at  the  present  time  this  ascription  has  received 
almost  universal  acceptance.  But  for  those  who  have 
carefully  studied  not  only  what  we  have  documen- 
tary evidence  to  justify  us  in  giving  to  him,  but 
also  the  disputed  works  such  as  the  Eve  of  the 
Louvre,  the  Creglingen  altarpiece,  or  the  Anna  and 
Joachim  group,  surely  the  grounds  for  this  judgment 
must  be  far  to  seek.  Should  we  not  find,  on  the  contrary, 
much  which  would  seem  conclusively  to  show  that 
though  we  may,  almost  in  desperation,  look  around  for 
some  master  with  which  to  connect  them  and  fail  to 
find  him,  the  name  of  Riemenschneider  is  not  the  one 
which,  without  any  hesitation,  springs  to  the  lips? 
What  work,  indeed,  that  we  know  to  be  by  him  is  to  be 
selected  to  be  placed  beside  these  busts  for  comparison  ? 
The  very  material — pearwood — from  which  they  are 
carved  is  one  which,  at  the  least,  would  have  been 
unusual  with  him,  and  contrary  to  his  general  style. 
His  work  is  nearly  always  in  oak  or  limewood,  and  one 
would  think  that  we  should  look  rather  for  the  artist 
amongst    the   class  of  his   contemporaries   who   were 

122 


FLA  I  J    XI II 


1.     PORTRAIT    BUSTS.     BOXWOOD.     SIXTEENTH   CENTl'RV 

BRITISH    MUSEUM 


BUSTS.     PEARWOOD.    i;ERMAN.    SIXTEENTH   CENTURV 

VICTORIA    AND    ALBERT    Ml";KfM 

I'Ar.RS   laa,  1S6 


/'//•.    I  /■.A(,.-i.K,/,/(,//A/w /.      rl'LEKllNt.    J.IKK'>  OK    -  J  Ui.E.XD,   SCIIONIIEI  r,    UNO   H  ASSLlCli  K  EIT 

("YOUTH,   BEAUTY  AND   UGLINESS') 
tvll.vchromed.     sixtkrnth  century.     sculptor  unknown.     amiiras  com.rction,  imi'ckial  musbum,  vienna 

i>a{;k  124 


R  I  E  M  E  N  S  C  H  N  E  I  D  E  R 

connected  with  the  goldsmiths — the  Meits  or  Ludwig 
Krugs.  It  is  difficult  indeed  to  appear  to  differ  when 
so  much  unanimity  seems  to  prevail.  So  lately  even 
as  1906  these  busts  were  lent  to  the  exhibition  of  the 
Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club  and  were  there  ascribed  to 
Riemenschneider.  Yet,  we  may  still  be  permitted  to 
hold  a  contrary  opinion,  and  in  a  case  of  this  importance 
to  express  it.  For  my  own  part,  while  I  feel  that  I 
have  no  alternative  name  to  offer,  even  as  a  suggestion, 
I  am  totally  unable  to  see  the  same  feeling,  the  same 
style  or  handling,  much  less  so  great  a  talent,  in  the 
sculptor  of  the  Magdalen,  of  the  Creglingen  altarpiece, 
of  the  Munich  apostles — even  of  the  Anna  and  Joachim 
group — as  in  these  busts.  They  belong  to  a  different 
age  :  to  a  movement,  at  least,  with  which  there  is  no 
evidence  to  show  that  Riemenschneider  was  connected, 
or  even  sympathetic. 

At  one  time  it  seemed  to  be  the  fashion  to 
attribute  any  kind  of  fine  figure  work  to  Riemen- 
schneider. Even  so  long  ago  as  1857,  before  the  days 
of  illustration  by  photography,  when  Ausm'  Weerth 
published  his  fine  work  Denkmdlcr  des  cJirist lichen 
AlthertJm7ns  m  de7i  RJieinlanden,  the  wonderful  group 
of  coloured  figures  known  as  the  '  Verganglichkeit '  in 
the  Imperial  Museum,  Vienna,  was  ascribed  to  him, 
and  we  may  take  it  here  under  his  name.  It  is  an 
allegory  or  personification  of  '  Fleeting  Life  ' — per- 
haps, rather,  a  '  Memento  Mori ' — designed  to  impress 
upon  us  the  vanities  of  human  existence.  Dances  of 
death,  whether  single  figures  or  in  groups,  were  favourite 
subjects  in  late  Gothic  times  :  for  example,  amongst 
other  celebrated  series,  the  painting  by  Hans  Baldung 
(1476- 1 545),  in  which  is  represented  a  young  girl  nude, 
an  old  woman,  and  Death.  In  the  'Verganglichkeit' 
(Plate  XIV.)  we  have  three  nude  figures  standing  back 
to  back:  a  youth,  a  girl  in  her  full  beauty,  and  a 
decrepit  old  woman,  marked  with  all  the  infirmities  of 

123 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

age,  even  to  realistic  and  repulsive  details  of  flies 
crawling  over  her  yellow  shrunken  skin,  and  other 
horrors.  It  is  a  masterpiece  by  an  artist  with  con- 
summate knowledge  of  the  treatment  of  the  nude  :  of 
such  training  and  practice  in  the  antique  as  we  have 
no  reason  to  believe  fell  to  the  lot  of  Riemenschneider. 
His  school  had  been  rather  that  of  Gothic  traditions, 
dying  out,  no  doubt,  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  but, 
still,  more  tenaciously  adhered  to  in  Germany  than  any- 
where else.  The  unknown  carver  is  more  likely  a 
Renaissance  master  of  a  considerably  later  date.  We 
have  in  it  realism  at  its  highest,  yet  not  such  absolute 
following  of  nature,  as  with  less  consummate  art  is 
pushed  to  extremes  by  Wydyz,  Daucher,  and  others,  in 
their  small  figures  and  panels  for  caskets  in  boxwood, 
pearwood,  and  honestone,  which  are  frequent  in  mid- 
sixteenth  century  work.  The  Verganglichkeit  group  is 
fully  coloured,  and  is  still  in  the  original  leather  case 
in  which  it  was  enclosed  when  acquired  from  the 
Augustinian  collegiate  church  of  St.  Florian  in  Upper 
Austria,  having  an  opening  through  which  each  figure 
of  the  group,  turning  on  a  pivot,  could  be  exposed  in 
turn.  The  ascription  to  Riemenschneider  would  seem 
to  have  arisen  in  one  of  those  haphazard  ventures  or 
guesses,  started  one  scarcely  knows  how,  or  by  whom, 
which  by  repetition  in  courseof  time  acquires  authority. 
If  it  rests  on  anything  at  all,  it  might  be  on  some 
fancied  resemblance  to  the  Eve  of  Wiirzburg,  but  this 
is  of  quite  another  type  of  art.  It  is  suggestive  also  to 
notice  that  Tonnies,  in  his  monograph  on  Riemen- 
schneider, thinks  both  this  group  and  the  Adam  and 
Eve  busts  to  be  by  the  same  hand.  Equally  conten- 
tious as  to  origin,  and  similarly  ascribed  to  Riemen- 
schneider, on  account  of  a  certain  resemblance  to  the 
type  of  some  of  his  Madonnas,  or  of  his  Magdalen,  is 
the  Eve  of  the  Louvre.  There  is,  of  course,  a  striking 
analogy  in  form  and  expression  of  the  face,  in  the 
124 


PLATE  .\r 


1.    ST.  SEBASTIAN,    ATTRIBUTED  TO  CRISTOFORO   KOPFA 

VICTORIA   AND   ALBERT  MUSEUM 

2.    EVE.     POLYCHRO.MED   FIGURE.    ATTRIBUTED  TO  RIEMENSCHNEIDER 

I.OUVRB   MUSBUM 
PACKS    US,  «58 


rr.Arr.  wi 


.K(;UI'.     nil.  VII«iI\.  SI.  J(»M\   AM)  SI.    \I.\KN    MA(;ii.\i.i;\.     ki.kmish. 
IXTKtNTll   CKNTURV 

Al  r.tIM'    .Ml  SVIM    Is.M.TIMi    IIIS<,>1'KST| 


RIEMENSCHNIEDER 

treatment  of  the  long  flowing  hair  in  long  wavy- 
separate  strands,  and  to  a  certain  extent  the  anatomy. 
Yet,  while  it  is  by  no  means  unreasonable  to  accept  the 
ascription  to  Riemenschneider,  we  may  remember  that 
the  type  or  model  was  a  favourite  one  with  others 
of  his  school.  Besides,  as  a  work  of  art,  the  Eve 
in  wood  is  greatly  superior  to  his  Eve  in  stone. 
Entirely  German,  of  the  school,  and  with  some  of 
the  mannerisms  of  that  school,  of  the  Magdalen, 
it  is  much  nearer  in  refinement  and  elegance  to  the 
level  of  the  Verganglichkeit  group.  Equally  with  the 
latter  it  is  coloured,  and  it  is  right  to  say  that  the 
reproduction  here  given  is,  on  this  account,  faulty.  By 
Daun,  this  Eve  has  been  given  with  certainty  to  Veit 
Stoss.  He  finds  the  style  of  Stoss  in  the  prominent 
chin,  the  short  neck,  the  thick  upper  lip,  the  nose,  the 
eyebrows  ;  and  analogies  to  other  carvings,  and  in 
etchings,  by  the  Niirnberg  artist.  It  is  not  easy  to 
follow  him  here.  On  the  contrary  Veit  Stoss  would 
seem  to  be  the  farthest  removed  of  any  sculptor  of  the 
time  that  could  be  selected. 

There  are  two  groups  in  the  Salting  collection  of 
the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  ascribed  to  Riemen- 
schneider, one  of  which  is  here  reproduced  (Plate  xvi.). 

For  many  characteristics  of  the  Franconian  schools 
of  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  we  may  refer 
back  to  an  earlier  w^ood-carver  of  the  Bavarian  or 
Austrian  Tyrol,  Michael  Pacher  of  Bruneck.  Exactly 
how  far  and  how  much  of  the  development  of  the  art 
of  the  Niirnberg  and  Suabian  masters  may  be  traced 
to  his  influence  would  be  difficult  to  lay  down  with 
precision.  He  is  the  master  and  leader,  rather,  of  the 
art  of  the  more  southern  districts  of  Upper  Bavaria 
and  of  the  Tyrol.  It  is  necessary  to  pass  quickly  over 
all  these  German  altarpieces,  although  every  village 
church,  almost,  possesses  them,  together  with  single 
figures  which,  if  not  in  every  case  of  the  highest  art, 

125 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

have  considerable  attraction  from  their  quaintness  and 
originality.  The  National  Museum  at  Munich  has,  of 
course,  an  admirable  collection  of  the  finest  examples. 
Little  is  known  of  the  history  of  Michael  Pacher. 
Born  at  Bruneck  in  the  Pusterthal,  about  1430- 1440, 
he  flourished  probably  about  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  died  at  Salzburg  in  1498.  Both  painter  and 
sculptor,  he  is  most  generally  recognized  as  a  master  in 
the  former  art.  Living  near  Italy  it  was  natural  that  he 
should  be  influenced  by  the  Italian,  and  especially  the 
Venetian  schools  of  painting,  and  this  influence  may 
be,  to  a  certain  extent,  traceable  in  his  carved  wood. 
Still,  in  this,  it  is  not  very  marked,  and  he  remains 
distinctly  German.  Amongst  other  famous  altar- 
pieces  by  Michael  Pacher,  the  most  remarkable  is 
the  one  made  for  the  church  at  St.  Wolfgang  in  1477. 
Indeed,  it  is  in  many  ways  unsurpassed  by  any  others  in 
the  empire.  Pacher,  as  already  mentioned,  was  in  the 
first  place  a  great  painter,  and  in  this  piece  his  talents 
in  both  directions  are  admirably  conjoined.  He  loved 
rich  colouring,  rich  garments,  crowns  and  jewelled 
ornaments,  and  we  have  all  these  in  profusion.  The 
subject  is  the  Coronation  of  the  Virgin,  or  perhaps 
rather  her  reception  in  the  heavenly  kingdom.  Mary 
kneels,  with  crown  on  head,  before  the  Almighty, 
Himself  crowned,  robed,  and  throned  as  an  earthly 
potentate,  the  right  hand  raised  in  blessing,  the  left 
resting  on  an  orb.  The  Blessed  Virgin  herself  wears 
a  golden  mantle  with  a  long  train  in  voluminous  folds, 
treated  with  the  mannerism  which  is  characteristic  of 
the  time.  Her  head,  already  crowned  with  a  gorgeous 
crown,  is  modestly  bent  and  inclined  to  one  side.  The 
large  single  figures  on  the  right  and  left  are  St.  Wolf- 
gang, patron  of  the  town,  and  St.  Benedict,  who  is 
represented  as  a  mitred  abbot  bearing  a  crosier,  and 
holding  in  one  hand  the  poisoned  chalice.  The  mitre, 
of  course,  is  by  artistic  licence.  Around,  in  a  magnifi- 
126 


n  ATF.  xru 


2  = 

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X  a    < 

o  i 

73  a 


-rsMMM^mH* 


MICHAEL    PACKER 

cent  setting  of  pinnacled  architectural  work,  with  rich 
pendentives,  are  numerous  figures  of  angels,  floating 
here  and  there  in  the  air,  singing  and  playing  on 
musical  instruments,  and  joyously  acclaiming  the 
solemn  spectacle  which  represents  the  last  of  the 
glorious  mysteries  of  the  Rosary.  It  is,  however, 
hardly  a  perspective  composition,  but  rather  the  usual 
grouping  of  single  figures.  Yet  this  is  done  with 
dramatic  effect,  far  more  masterly  in  arrangement  than 
are  so  many  of  the  later  Franconian  altarpieces. 

For  Pacher's  art  as  a  painter,  and  for  other  details 
of  his  sculptured  work,  I  cannot  do  better  than  refer 
the  reader  to  the  admirable  series  of  articles  by 
M.  Auguste  Marguillier  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts 
^^eme  p^j.  |-qj^  ^j^  1 894).  Uutil  rcccut  years  almost 
unknown,  he  is  entitled  to  a  high  place  amongst  the 
masters  of  the  old  German  schools.  To  establish  this 
claim  it  should  almost  suffice  to  name  the  panel  with 
the  '  Circumcision '  of  the  altarpiece  of  St.  Wolfgang. 
Others,  of  lesser  merit,  in  the  same  work,  were  formerly 
attributed  to  Wohlgemut,  but  now  to  the  master's 
brother,  Friedrich,  and  other  assistants.  In  the  Pina- 
cothek  of  Munich,  at  Innsbruck,  and  at  Augsburg, 
more,  again,  may  be  studied.  For  sculpture,  the 
archives  of  the  town  of  Gries  record  the  contract  made 
with  Pacher  in  147 1  to  carve  a  retable  for  the  church, 
which  was  '  to  be  useful,  precious  and  complete,'  repre- 
senting the  Coronation  of  the  B.V.M.  and  other  sub- 
jects, with  numerous  figures  and  busts  of  saints.  This 
one  is  in  similar  style,  though  not  so  elaborate,  to  that 
at  St.  Wolfgang.  The  latter  also  is  of  very  large 
dimensions,  measuring  about  36  feet  in  height  by  21 
in  width  when  the  wings  are  opened.  It  is  a  noble 
work  of  a  master  in  painting,  in  architecture,  and  in 
sculpture. 

The  altarpiece  at  Schwabach  by  Veit  Stoss,  or  at 
least   executed   under    his   direction    in   Wohlgemut's 

127 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

workshop,  has  already  been  noticed.  Dissociating  in 
each  case  the  question  of  painting,  this  work  bears  so 
remarkable  a  resemblance  to  that  at  St.  Wolfgang, 
especially  as  regards  the  central  subject,  which  is  an 
almost  absolute  copy,  that  the  merit  of  the  Niirnberg 
work  must  be  considerably  discounted.  Even  as  a 
copy  it  lacks  Pacher's  refinement  and  evidence  of 
training  in  the  best  schools  of  painting. 

In  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  are  four  panels 
of  pinewood,  which,  according  to  the  labels  of  forty  or 
fifty  years  ago,  are  of  Pacher's  school.  The  most,  per- 
haps, that  can  be  said,  is  that  they  are  representative  of 
those  southern  mountainous  districts  of  the  Bavarian 
and  Austrian  Tyrol  where  the  art  of  wood-carving  has 
ever  found,  as  it  finds  to-day  at  Ober-Ammergau,  a 
congenial  home.  They  are  quaintly  pictorial,  these  four 
evangelists,  and  in  somewhat  high  relief,  each  seated 
at  his  work,  in  his  study  as  it  were,  in  his  own  homely 
surroundings,  even  though  these  details  be  contem- 
porary with  those  familiar  to  the  artist.  Here  they 
sit  on  their  benches,  their  backs  turned  partly  to  the 
spectator,  their  books  on  little  shelves  in  alcoves  above 
them,  engaged  in  one  way  or  another,  all  with  every 
air  of  naturalness,  which  is  most  charming.  St.  John 
sits  almost  upright,  the  face  in  profile,  his  arms  raised 
and  elbows  leaning  on  the  desk,  as  he  mends  his  pen, 
the  legs  in  easy  attitudes  seen  beneath  the  bench.  But 
I  see  nothing  to  lead  us  to  attach  to  these  panels  the 
name  of  Michael  Pacher,  or  his  influence. 

Hans  Multscher  of  the  Upper  Suabian  school  is  a 
still  earlier  master  of  wood-carving,  and  again  a 
painter  of  great  merit.  There  is  a  considerable  collec- 
tion of  his  wood  sculpture  in  the  Lorenzkapelle  at 
Rottweil,  whither  it  was  brought  from  the  Capuchin 
church  at  Wurmlingen  in  185 1.  Unfortunately  we 
are  in  the  same  condition  of  ignorance  concerning  his 
life  as  confronts  us  in  the  case  of  so  many  other 
128 


I' LA  IE    XI' 111 


> 

z  ? 

5    U     £ 


I.-  2    < 


V  '"^  " 


HANS    MULTSCHER 

German  wood  sculptors  of  the  period.  From  scanty 
information  we  may  glean  that,  besides  his  reputation 
as  a  painter,  he  was  famous  also  for  his  work  in  wood 
and  stone.  The  great  altarpiece  of  the  Frauenkirche 
at  Sterzing  in  the  Tyrol  is  by  him,  and  the  curious 
group  in  wood  of  our  Lord  riding  on  the  ass,  at  one 
time  in  St.  Ulrich's  Convent  at  Augsburg,  is  connected 
with  his  name.  The  latter  subject  is  one  very  fre- 
quently found  in  German  fourteenth-century  wood- 
sculpture.  Two  illustrations  of  Multscher's  figure  work 
are  here  given  ;  the  Saint  Barbara  and  Saint  Margaret 
of  the  church  at  Sterzing  (Plate  xviii.).  We  have  no 
positive  evidence,  it  is  true,  that  Multscher  was  a  painter 
of  pictures.  Of  his  work  there  is  nothing  authentic 
except  in  sculpture.  In  1433  he  made  an  altar  for  the 
cathedral  of  Ulm,  of  which,  however,  but  little  now 
remains.  His  figures  are  in  general  of  a  different 
character  from  the  stern,  austere  type  of  the  later 
Gothic  period.  The  women  are  of  more  mature  age, 
yet  shapely,  attractive,  and  unaffected.  Multscher  was 
certainly  a  master  of  his  craft,  and  as  we  have  com- 
paratively so  little  of  the  Suabian  schools  of  wood 
sculpture  of  the  early  fifteenth  century,  the  collection 
at  Rottweil  is  particularly  valuable.  But  it  must 
suffice  to  call  strong  attention  to  it,  without  considering 
it  in  detail. 

So  also  with  other  remarkable  examples  by  un- 
known late  Gothic  sculptors  of  the  Upper  Bavarian 
schools.  In  particular,  the  very  fine  statues  of  Our 
Lord,  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  of  the  Twelve  Apostles 
in  the  Klosterkirche  of  Blutenburg.  One  of  these, 
that  of  the  Madonna,  is  perhaps  as  fine  as  anything  in 
wood  of  the  period,  which  could  be  brought  forward. 
It  has  technically  considerable  analogy  with,  and 
artistically  may  stand  as  high  as  the  Madonna  of  the 
Niirnberg  Museum. 

The    last-named    famous   figure   is    perhaps   better 
I  129 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

known,  and  has  exacted  more  admiration,  at  least  of 
a  popular  kind,  than  any  other  example  of  mediaeval 
wood -carving.  We  can  give  it  no  name  but  that 
of  the  Niirnberg  Madonna ;  we  are  absolutely  in  the 
dark  with  regard  to  its  origin.  But  it  must  be  said 
also  that  not  only  has  speculation  been  baffled  con- 
cerning the  unknown  sculptor  whose  creation  it  is, 
but  there  exist  also  some  differences  of  opinion  as  to 
the  measure  of  art  which  may  be  claimed  for  it.  Nor 
can  we  be  certain  even  wuth  regard  to  the  subject : 
whether,  indeed,  it  is  a  figure  of  the  Madonna  at  all ; 
and  if  we  may  take  it  so  to  be,  whether  it  is  the  Virgin 
of  one  of  the  joyful  mysteries,  of  the  glorious,  or  of  the 
sorrowful  ones.  For  according  as  it  may  impress  us, 
we  may  have  here  the  Virgin  of  the  Annunciation,  or  of 
the  Assumption,  or — in  the  calmness  and  happy  joy  of 
resignation — of  the  sorrowing  mother  at  the  foot  of  the 
cross.  Few,  indeed,  will  hesitate  to  accept  it  as  one  of 
the  two  figures,  the  other  being  St.  John,  which  were 
so  invariable  and  universal  accompaniments  to  the 
rood  figures  in  every  country.  But  so  different  may 
be  the  effects  produced  on  different  minds,  that  while 
some  see  in  the  expression  of  the  face  a  happy,  joyful 
expectation,  the  statue  has  long  been  known  in  Ger- 
many as  the  Schnierzensniutter — the  Mater  Dolorosa. 
Are,  then,  the  eyes  ecstatically  joyful,  with  the  tender- 
ness of  love  fulfilled,  or  are  they  almost  overflowing 
with  suppressed  tears,  betraying  an  unspoken  lament, 
which  asks  for  no  consolation?  Is  it  the  Magnificat, 
or  the  theme  of  the  Stabat  Mater,  that  is  expressed  by 
those  clasped,  uplifted  hands  which,  in  their  exquisite 
modelling,  are  in  themselves  masterpieces,  and  evidences 
of  a  craftsman  to  whom  not  one  of  those  with  whom 
we  have  dealt,  and  no  unknown  sculptor  of  existing 
woodwork  of  the  period  can  compare?  Bode  in  his 
early  work  on  German  sculpture,  published  in  1885, 
was  of  opinion  that,  although  the  place  of  origin  of 
130 


PLATE  XIX 


1.   IHE  MADONNA   OK   NURNHERO.     SIXTEENTH    CENTURY.    SCULPTOR   UNKNOWN 

GEKMAN    MUf^EL'M,    N(KMiEKC. 

•-'.   MADONNA.     RHENISH.     FIFTEENTH   CENTURY 

LOL'VKK    MUSEL'M 

rAi;E  130 


THE    NURNBERG    MADONNA 

this  figure  was  said  to  be  Gnadenberg  in  the  Palatinate, 
the  impress  of  the  Nurnberg  school  of  the  sixteenth 
century  is  too  strong  to  be  doubtful.  We  may  be 
content  with  this.  At  the  same  time  the  question  may 
not  be  altogether  unworthy  of  consideration,  Is  it  even 
German  ?  Admirers  of  every  Nurnberg  sculptor  of 
note  have  striven  to  claim,  for  the  particular  object  of 
their  study,  the  credit  of  this  work.  Adam  Krafft  the 
stone  sculptor,  Peter  Vischer  the  bronze  founder,  the 
master  of  the  Blutenburg  Madonna,  the  master  of  the 
Piet^  of  the  Jakobskirche  in  Nurnberg,  Veit  Stoss, 
of  course,  and  perhaps  even  Riemenschneider,  have 
each  in  turn  found  their  advocates.  We  cannot  now 
stay  to  consider  all  these  claims  and  the  arguments 
upon  which  they  are  founded.  Not  infrequently,  after 
the  manner  of  German  minute  research,  an  analogy 
will  be  found,  and  driven  to  a  conclusion,  in  a  resem- 
blance to  some  isolated  detail  of  drapery  or  attitude : 
for  example,  in  the  figure  of  the  lady  in  the  sixth  of 
Veit  Stoss's  Commandment  plaques.  And  if,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  enthusiasm  of  eminent  critics  has  been 
aroused,  on  the  other  we  meet  now  and  then  with 
terms  of  disparagement  which  do  not  err  on  the  side 
of  moderation.  Daun  (and  M.  Louis  R^au  follows 
him)  quarrels  with  the  proportions  of  the  figure  and 
with  certain  mannerisms.  Daun  holds  that  the  figure 
is  too  lank,  the  head  and  face  much  too  small,  that 
according  to  the  canons  of  art  the  normal  figure  is  yl 
heads  long,  and  this  Madonna  almost  9 ;  the  shoulders 
are  too  small,  the  undeveloped  bosom  too  high,  the 
hip-joint  too  high,  and  so  on.  We  need  not  go  too 
deeply  into  these  points,  but  as  to  proportions  generally  : 
in  the  first  place,  the  intended  position  of  the  figure 
has  to  be  taken  into  consideration.  If  it  is  one  of  a 
rood  group,  it  would  probably  have  been  placed  at  a 
considerable  height.  Vasari  distinctly  lays  down  that 
when  statues  are  to  be  in  a  high  position,  and  there  is 

131 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

not  much  space  below  to  allow  one  to  go  far  enough 
off  to  view  them  at  a  distance,  they  must  be  made  one 
head,  or  two,  taller.  And  even  without  these  conditions 
innumerable  instances  in  statuary  and  painting  could 
be  cited,  in  which  the  proportions  are  equally  exag- 
gerated. The  canons  of  art  in  this  regard  are  not  rigid 
and  invariable.  As  Flaubert  says,  '  the  conception  of 
any  work  of  art  carries  within  it  its  own  rule.'  \Chaque 
ceuvre  a  sa  podtiqiie  en  sot,  quil  faiit  trouver.)  And 
Diirer,  that  while  the  artist  must  in  no  ways  abate 
what  is  essential  to  truth,  neither  must  he  lay  what  is 
intolerable  upon  nature.  But  here  there  is  surely 
nothing  intolerable,  but  an  added  grace  and  charm, 
and  in  another  place  in  the  great  German  master's 
discourses  on  proportion  we  learn  that  departures 
from  rule  are  variations  such  as  the  artist  specially 
intends,  so  long  as  one  deviates  without  having  the 
air  of  monstrosities  or  negligence.  Almost  all  the 
older  writers  have  discoursed  on  the  proportions  of 
the  human  figure.  Vitruvius's  proportion  was  eight 
heads  as  the  extreme  limit  for  a  normal  adult.  But 
many  artists  make  the  figure  nine  heads  high,  thus  : 
for  throat  and  neck,  ^ ;  chin  to  top  of  forehead, 
I  ;  torso,  3 ;  pit  of  throat  to  shoulder,  i  ;  arm  to  wrist, 
3  ;  instep  to  sole,  i.  Far  greater  exaggerations  are 
frequent  in  painting.  To  take  but  one  haphazard,  a 
reproduction  of  which  lies  before  me  as  I  write,  a  St. 
Ursula  group  by  Antonio  Vivarini  in  the  seminary  of 
St.  Angelo  at  Brescia.  Here  the  Ursula  is  no  less 
than  eleven  heads  high,  and  the  attendant  virgins 
are  almost  as  disproportionate.  And  again,  in  later 
times,  it  would  be  superfluous  to  point  to  the  example 
of  Michael  Angelo.  All  this  is  of  course  among  the 
commonplaces  of  art,  and  though  perhaps  but  super- 
ficially stated  here,  may  be  of  interest  to  those  to 
whom  it  is  not  familiar  in  relation  to  the  present  example. 
It  was  through  no  ignorance,  nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
132 


ft  ATE  XX 


THE   MADONNA   OF   NURNBERG.     FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 
nOrnbbrc  museum 

KROM    THli    CAST    IN    THE   VICTORIA    AND    AlP.nHT    MUSEUM 


THE    NURNBERG    MADONNA 

from  an  abuse  of  licence,  that  the  artist  chose  to  pre- 
sent to  us  as  he  did  this  admirable  figure.  He  wished 
to  produce  on  our  minds  a  certain  emotional  effect, 
and  he  instinctively,  if  at  the  same  time  with  intention, 
followed  what  his  imagination  dictated  to  him.  Recon- 
struct the  Niirnberg  Madonna  according  to  the  most 
restricted  canons.  Would  it  then  have  continued  to 
extort  admiration  as  it  has  done  ?  To  find  fault  with 
it  on  these  grounds  is  the  cheapest  of  criticisms.  A 
second  objection,  upon  which  Daun  is  somewhat  con- 
temptuously strong,  is  the  protuberance  of  the  figure, 
accentuated,  as  it  is,  by  the  position  in  which  it  stands. 
But  this  is  due  to  a  common  fashion  of  the  time, 
beloved  by  artists :  comparable  to  the  exaggerated 
twist  which,  whether  or  not  derived  from  the  curve  of 
an  ivory  tusk,  was  so  much  affected  in  sculpture  and 
in  painting  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries. 
One  might  as  well  condemn  the  Van  Eyck  in  our 
National  Gallery — the  so-called  Arnolfini  and  his 
wife.  And  again,  what  if  the  figure  does  not  declare 
plainly  its  meaning,  or  bear  the  same  message  to  all  ? 
And  even  if  we  accept  that  we  are  to  connect  it  with  a 
Schmerzensmittter — a  rood  figure — an  acquaintance 
with  German  art  of  the  period  would  show  that  the 
expression  of  the  mother's  grief  was  not  always  pain- 
fully exhibited.  We  need  only  go  for  an  illustration 
of  this  to  the  great  master  who,  we  may  well  imagine, 
inspired  the  author  of  this  figure.  We  may  take,  for 
instance,  Diirer's  series  of  the  Sieben  Schmerzen  in  the 
Dresden  gallery.  The  Nurnberg  Madonna  will  need 
but  little  defence  for  the  readers  for  whom  these 
remarks  are  written.  For  my  own  part,  I  am  free  to 
confess  that  I  cannot  easily  rid  myself  of  early  impres- 
sions produced  when  I  first  saw  it,  removed  from 
Nurnberg  to  the  exhibition  of  German  art  at  Munich 
in  1876.  A  word  more  may  be  added  with  regard  to 
the    character    of    the   drapery.     This    is    certainly   a 

133 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

departure,  and  a  welcome  one,  from  the  prevailing 
style  of  the  period.  It  is  a  harking  back  to  older  and 
better  traditions.  We  feel  ourselves  rather  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Italian  trecento,  from  which  this 
sane  system,  as  we  shall  find  it  in  French  art  in  wood 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  such  as  the  statue  of  N.D.  des 
Ardents  in  the  Cluny  Museum  was  derived  ;  in  many 
more,  also,  in  wood,  which  may  be  remembered  in  the 
exhibition  of  French  primitives  at  Paris  in  1904,  and 
we  shall  find  it  where  we  might  be  inclined  to  find  also 
if  not  the  same  sculptor,  at  least  one  whose  art  was 
similar  if  not  greater,  in  the  Blutenburg  Madonna 
figure  already  mentioned. 

There  is  one  more  group  whose  connexion  with 
the  Niirnberg  Madonna  would  appear  to  be  unmis- 
takable. This  is  the  Pieta  of  the  Jakobskirche 
in  Niirnberg,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  work 
of  Veit  Stoss.  Without  accepting  this,  we  must  not 
omit  to  notice  the  judgment  of  Doctor  Bode  in  his 
history  of  German  sculpture  (1885  edition),  when 
he  says  that  the  relationship  between  the  Madonna  and 
the  Pieta  is  so  great  that  they  must  be  the  work  of  one 
and  the  same  master.  The  head  of  the  Virgin  is  in 
both  almost  the  same :  the  large,  fine,  expressiv^e  eyes, 
the  full  lips,  the  arrangement  of  the  veil  are  repeated, 
and  no  question  can  remain  that  the  statue  is  a 
Madonna  and  no  other  saint.  But  the  known 
authenticated  work  of  Veit  Stoss  ought  surely  to  place 
beyond  doubt  the  idea  that  it  was  in  any  way  likely 
that  he  could  either  have  conceived  or  executed  either 
of  these  two  works.  I  cannot  admit  the  possibility. 
It  remains  to  be  noted  that  both  the  group  and  the 
statuette  have  been  for  many  years  painted  a  dull  olive 
green.  Whether  originally  polychromed  or  not,  or 
what  was  the  character  of  the  colouring,  we  have  now 
no  means  of  knowing.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
attempt  will    never  be   made  to   add  anything  of  the 

134 


PL  ATE  .\:\J 


—  a 

—  3 

r.    ^ 


NORTH    GERMAN 

kind.  Reproductions  of  all  sizes  of  the  Madonna 
abound,  in  various  materials,  for  the  most  part  libel- 
lous ;  but  even  when  from  moulds  taken  direct  from 
the  figure  itself  they  are  not  entirely  successful,  neither 
is  any  photograph.  The  earliest  history  we  have  of 
the  figure,  which  is  probably  of  limewood,  is  that  it 
was  about  the  year  1829  in  the  Kaiserkapelle  of 
Niirnberg,  whence  it  was  removed  in  1876  to  the  Town 
Hall.  It  is  supposed  that  it  came  originally  from  the 
church  of  the  Dominican  order  dispersed  in  1807,  and 
was  restored — if  one  may  use  the  term — and  painted 
with  a  uniform  coating  of  green  in  1825. 

The  number  of  altarpieces,  groups,  and  single 
figures  in  wood  throughout  Germany  is  enormous. 
The  quality  no  doubt  is  mixed,  and  many  possess 
little  merit.  There  are,  however,  not  a  few — and  we 
should  naturally  expect  to  find  this  to  be  the  case  at 
such  a  period  of  artistic  activity — that  demand  especial 
notice.  We  cannot,  of  course,  in  a  book  which  is  not 
confined  to  German  art  in  wood,  follow  them  all.  A 
few  brief  remarks  must  suffice  for  some  others. 
Among  the  altarpieces,  those  to  be  found  in  the 
more  northerly  divisions,  strongly  influenced  by  the 
art  of  the  Netherlands,  and  themselves  transmitting 
this  influence  to  the  rest  of  the  empire,  have  been 
perforce  omitted  in  favour  of  the  more  original  and 
national  art  of  the  southern  provinces.  Calcar  and 
Xanten  were  centres  of  industry  in  this  kind  of  work, 
and  if  we  were  concerned  with  lists  of  distinguished 
names  we  should  include  the  altarpieces  of  Loedewick, 
Bogaert,  and  many  others.  At  Liibeck,  wood-carving 
is  richly  represented  by  innumerable  magnificent  ex- 
amples of  sculpture  in  wood.  Amongst  them,  and 
again  at  Giistrow  and  at  Danzig,  we  find  the  fine 
work  of  the  Flemish  master  Jan  Borman  of  Brussels, 
the  wings  of  his  altarpieces  painted  by  his  com- 
patriot Barend  van  Orley.      The  Flemish  and  Dutch 

135 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

influences  here  and  in  the  Calcar  neighbourhood  are 
strong,  both  of  sculptors  and  painters.  Still  further 
north,  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  we  have  what  is 
considered  by  some  to  be  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of 
woodwork  of  the  kind  in  Germany.  This  is  the  great 
altarpiece  in  carved  oak  by  Hans  Briiggemann  made 
in  1 52 1  for  the  Klosterkirche  at  Bordesholm,  and  now 
in  the  cathedral  at  Schleswig.  As  separate  composi- 
tions, the  central  group  of  the  Crucifixion  and  the 
fourteen  or  fifteen  lesser  panels,  crowded  with  figures 
in  full  relief,  are  astonishing  in  their  animated  arrange- 
ment and  dramatic  force.  The  pity  is  that  they  are 
framed  in  a  setting  of  niggling  and  commonplace 
cut-work  tracery  and  distorted  architectural  motives 
which  one  can  hardly  conceive  to  be  from  the  same 
hand.  Probably  they  were  not,  and  with  the  single 
figures — our  Lord  in  Majesty,  Adam  and  Eve,  a 
Madonna,  an  angel  with  a  pillar  and  another  with  a 
cross — are  of  even  later  date.  At  least,  they  fore- 
shadow the  rococo  which  later  on  invaded  the  land 
and  are  hardly  worth  serious  consideration.  We  shall 
not  stay  to  consider  how  far  Briiggemann  was  indebted 
to  Flemish  teaching  for  his  art.  Certainly  the  central 
group  of  this  altarpiece,  with  its  many  groups  in  a 
kind  of  stereoscopic  perspective,  of  which  there  is  a 
cast  in  white  plaster  in  the  Kensington  Museum, 
follows  its  best  traditions,  and  is  admirable  in  arrange- 
ment and  in  execution.  In  Suabia  altarpieces  of 
another  character  abound.  As  we  are  forced  to 
summarize,  it  will  be  best  to  take  for  this  type  and 
to  illustrate  the  great  painted  and  gilded  triptychs 
acquired  by  the  South  Kensington  Museum  so  long 
ago  as  1859  (Plates  xxi.  and  xxii.).  Of  the  early  part 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  first  consists  of  a  central 
panel  and  two  wings.  The  principal  subject  is  the 
Virgin  with  the  Infant  seated  under  a  canopy  of  late 
German  Gothic  style.  On  one  side  of  her  is  a  figure 
136 


PL  A  TE  XX If 


SUABIAN    ALTARPIECES 

of  St.  John,  on  the  other,  another,  perhaps  a  local  saint, 
and  on  the  wings,  in  low  relief,  four  subjects  in  the 
life  of  Our  Lord  and  His  mother.  In  the  second 
example  (Plate  xxii.),  we  have  in  the  central  compart- 
ment a  Holy  Family  group  with  SS.  Anne,  Joseph,  and 
Joachim  :  on  one  wing  is  St.  Christopher,  on  the  other 
St.  Mary  Magdalen.  The  whole  is  in  very  high  relief, 
very  thickly  coated  with  gesso,  painted  and  heavily 
gilded  and  burnished.  In  another  the  central  part 
represents,  with  almost  life-sized  figures,  scenes  from 
the  life  of  Saint  Margaret,  all  elaborately  coloured 
and  very  thickly  gilded.  Generally  speaking,  nothing 
could  be  more  representative  of  the  religious  taste 
and  feeling  of  the  time:  the  homeliness  and  peasant 
type  of  the  figures  and  accessories,  the  simple  inno- 
cence and  absence  of  any  idea  of  a  great  art  fitted  for 
the  requirements  of  princes  and  nobles,  at  the  same 
time  giving  the  best  and  richest  to  the  church,  the 
quaint  treatment,  the  details  of  the  martyrdom,  the 
valuable  information  to  be  gained  concerning  the 
costumes  and  manners  and  customs  of  the  time — all 
this,  and  more,  is  of  infinite  charm  and  attraction  in 
such  pieces  for  those  who  will  take  the  trouble  to 
examine  them. 

Of  Suabian  origin,  of  mid-fifteenth  century,  by 
masters  under  Flemish  influence,  and  followers  of 
Van  der  Weyden  and  the  Flemish  schools  of  paint- 
ing, are  such  altarpieces  as  those  ascribed  to  Fried- 
rich  Herlin  in  the  Jakobskirche  at  Rothenburg,  at 
Dunkersbuhl  and  Bopfingen,  to  Hans  Schulein  or 
Schiichlin  (1469)  at  Tiefenbronn,  and  many  magnifi- 
cent ones  in  the  cathedral  of  Ulm  and  in  the  neigh- 
bouring provinces.  Space,  however,  cannot  now  be 
spared  to  consider  these  and  such  other  typical  ones, 
in  the  arrangement  of  the  statuary  figures  and  busts 
placed  amongst  the  somewhat  eccentrically  treated  late 
Gothic  architectural  work,  as  we  find,  for  example,  in 

137 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  great  altarpiece  of  the  Kilianskirche  at  Heilbronn, 
in  the  Tauberland.  Of  a  more  northerly  school,  if 
indeed  we  are  justified  in  ascribing  the  production  to 
Saxony,  it  would  be  difficult  to  pass  without  mention 
the  fine  Pieta  group  in  the  Marienkirche  of  Zwickau. 
In  any  case,  there  is  more  than  a  little  suggestion  of 
its  connexion  with  the  Wiirzburg  and  Franconian 
schools,  as  must  be  said  also  of  the  High-altar  piece 
in  the  same  church,  of  an  earlier  date,  and  from  Wohl- 
gemut's  workshop.  The  Pieta  is,  of  course,  a  fragment 
of  a  crucifixion  group,  the  Mother  weeping  over  the 
body  of  the  dead  Christ,  just  taken  down  from  the 
cross.  The  Italian  inspiration,  from  Mantegna  per- 
haps, can  hardly  be  doubtful,  altered  for  German  feel- 
ing and  the  taste  of  the  time.  We  need  not  be  asked 
to  admire  the  exaggerated  treatment  of  the  drapery,  in 
which  the  German  artist  saw  a  decorative  beauty  of 
arrangement.  As  in  so  many  other  examples,  the 
predilection  for  this  style  shows  clearly  that  this  was 
its  object  rather  than  any  idea  of  truth  to  nature. 
Even  in  the  drapery  of  the  loincloth  of  a  crucifix 
figure,  the  sculptor,  the  painter,  or  the  engraver  was 
not  to  be  restrained  from  an  indulgence  in  wide- 
spreading  or  floating  twists  and  curls  which  could  have 
had  no  other  origin  and  tended  to  abuse. 

Of  single  figures  it  remains  to  notice  an  illustration 
of  the  favourite  practice  of  representing  holy  personages 
in  the  rich  costumes  and  amongst  the  surroundings  of 
the  period.  Examples  abound.  Two  fine  groups  are 
those  of  SS.  Gereon  and  Catherine  of  Siena,  and  SS. 
Sosimus  and  Barbara,  in  the  Niirnberg  Museum.  Both 
retain  their  original  colouring,  and  are  of  Franconian 
origin,  probably  from  Augsburg.  The  first-named 
pair  are  here  illustrated  (Plate  xxiii.),  and  we  may 
note  how  the  costume  of  the  lady  has  the  sweep  in  the 
folds,  suggestive  of  the  school,  and  the  elegance  and 
decorative  value  of  the  large  and  full  sleeves  gathered 
138 


Fl  ATE  XX III 


POLYCHROMED  GROUP.    SS.  CERF.ON   A 

SIXTKENIH   CLMUUV 


AUCSBURO   WORK. 


PLA  TE  .XXIV 


POLYCHROMED  GROUP.    ST.    ELIZABETH 

I.V   THE    EI.IZAUBTHKtRCHC,    MARBURU 
I'AUB    139 


AUGSBURG    AND    MARBURG 

together  over  the  wrists.  The  expression  '  the  lady ' 
is  intentionally  used,  for  there  is  no  obvious  sugges- 
tion in  either  figure  of  the  saint  supposed  to  be  repre- 
sented. No  doubt  the  heads  are  portraits  of  some 
noble  personages  who  held  these  saints  in  special 
devotion,  and  admirable,  from  this  point  of  view,  is  the 
head  of  the  lady.  Again  we  have  absolutely  no  clue 
to  identify  one  who  must  have  been  a  very  clever 
artist.  Not  one  of  the  names  we  have  been  able  to 
select  to  illustrate  late  fifteenth-century  wood-carving 
could  in  any  way  be  suggested.  Yet,  even  in  these 
figures,  Gothic  feeling  still  lingers,  though  the  six- 
teenth century  is  far  advanced.  To  my  mind,  the 
group  is  full  of  suggestion  with  regard  to  the  changes 
in  progress.  A  few  words  must  be  said  for  a  beautiful 
statuette  of  Saint  Elizabeth  in  the  Elizabethkirche  at 
Marburg.  It  is  a  noble  figure  that  many  will  be 
inclined  to  place  on  an  even  higher  level  than  the 
better  known  and  more  popular  Niirnberg  Madonna. 
The  style,  the  carefully  executed  details,  and  the  hand- 
ling of  the  drapery,  are  indicative  of  a  later  date  than 
the  latter.  The  head  is  bent  and  covered  with  a  veil 
which  almost  conceals  the  eyes.  She  carries  in  one 
hand  a  model  of  the  cathedral,  and  a  diminutive  urchin 
crouches  beside  her.  The  figure  is  fully  coloured. 
The  costume,  and  the  quaint  hood  and  wimple,  suggest 
late  fourteenth  century,  but  the  small-bosomed  figure, 
the  beautifully  modelled  hand,  and  the  general  style  of 
the  folds  of  the  drapery,  place  it  not  earlier  than 
the  second  half  of  the  fifteenth.  However  we  may 
look  at  it,  it  is  a  charming  example  of  the  realistic  art 
of  Germany  towards  the  close  of  the  Gothic  period. 


139 


CHAPTER    VIII 

SCULPTURE  IN  BOXWOOD— FRANCESCO  DA  SANT' 
AGATA— CONRAD  MEIT— HANS  WYDYZ 

WE  have  been  engaged,  for  the  most  part,  in 
the  preceding  chapters  with  wood  sculpture 
on  a  comparatively  large  scale  :  with  figures 
which,  in  many  cases,  have  claims  to  be  considered  on 
a  par  with  great  sculpture  rather  than  with  that  to 
which  the  vague  term  of  minor  art  is  frequently 
applied.  This  is  notably  the  case  with  regard  to 
Italian  and  French  work  of  the  early  and  later  Renais- 
sance, and  to  some  examples  by  German  masters  of  the 
close  of  the  Gothic  period.  But  in  the  whole  range  of 
our  subject  there  is  perhaps  no  division  which  offers  so 
much  attraction,  and  is  of  so  great  general  interest,  as 
that  which  relates  to  the  small  figure  w^ork,  usually 
executed  in  boxwood,  and  to  the  still  smaller  and 
amazing  tours  de  force  which,  in  default  of  a  better 
term,  we  must  class  as  microscopic  sculpture.  Ex- 
amples of  the  latter  kind,  though  not  very  numerous, 
are  to  be  found  in  almost  every  great  museum  or 
collection,  and  without  exception  it  may  be  said,  are 
of  the  highest  class,  apparently  proceeding  from  one 
workshop  of  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Totirs  de  force  though  they  may  be,  they  are  not  to  be 
confounded  with  clever  turnery  work,  which,  however 
wonderful  in  its  way,  and  evidence  of  patience  and 
dexterity,  can  make  no  pretensions  for  consideration 
as  art.  Skilful  work  of  the  latter  kind  has  been 
140 


BOXWOODS 

known  in  all  ages.  We  are  familiar,  for  instance,  with 
such  things  as  the  enclosing  of  numbers  of  tiny  spoons 
or  other  reproductions  on  the  most  minute  scale,  in  a 
nut  or  cherry  stone  :  with  writing  the  Lord's  Prayer  in 
the  compass  of  a  silver  penny,  and  so  on  :  and  with 
the  delightful  little  Japanese  netsukes  in  ivory  and 
wood.  The  microscopic  wood-carving,  which  will  pre- 
sently be  considered,  is  of  another  character.  It  may 
be  compared  with  the  beautiful  ivory  book-cover  of  the 
thirteenth  century  in  the  British  Museum,  which  con- 
tains, within  a  space  of  six  by  four  inches,  thirty  com- 
partments carved — with  what  may  truly  be  characterized 
as  fine  art — with  as  many  subjects  in  the  history  of  the 
Passion  of  our  Lord.  It  has  been  illustrated  and 
described  in  my  Ivories  (p.  159)  of  this  series.  We 
will,  however,  take  first  the  figures  in  boxwood,  pear- 
wood,  and  soft  woods,  which  in  comparison  with  those 
just  mentioned  are  proportionately  as  much  larger  as 
the  life-sized  statues  are  to  these  themselves.  Amongst 
them  the  busts  of  the  so-called  Adam  and  Eve  in  the 
museum  at  Kensington  have,  for  other  reasons,  found 
an  earlier  place.  These  boxwood  figures — as  in  the 
case  of  the  wood  medallions  to  which  we  shall  also 
presently  come — are,  speaking  generally,  more  to  be 
connected  with  the  atelier  of  the  goldsmith,  or  bronzist, 
than  with  that  of  the  wood  sculptor,  whose  line  was 
the  production  of  large  figures  for  altarpieces  and  the 
like.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted,  in  fact,  that  their 
genesis  was  often  due  to  the  requirements  of  the  metal- 
worker, or  founder,  as  models  or  patterns :  not,  of 
course,  wholly  excluding  them  as  treasured  objects  for 
the  cabinet  of  the  collector.  Our  examples  will  be,  for 
the  most  part,  German  work  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
but  in  more  than  one  we  shall  be  forcibly  impressed 
with  the  Italian  spirit,  transmitted  through  the  influ- 
ence of  such  masters  as  Durer,  Schaufelein,  Vischer, 
or  Fletner,  and,  generally,  through  the  continual  con- 

141 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

tact  with  Italy  of  German  artists  in  their  wander- 
years  and  afterwards.  It  will  be  unnecessary,  also,  to 
refer  again  to  the  continual  copying  from  the  engraved 
works  of  these  and  of  other  masters  of  ornament. 
Italy  itself  will  furnish  us  with  our  finest  example  : 
but  it  would  seem  probable  that  such  figures  were 
produced  only  in  a  few  places  in  Venetian  districts,  if 
we  may  judge  from  the  scarcity  of  existing  specimens. 
Boxwoods  were  probably  more  worked  in  Augsburg 
than  elsewhere  in  Germany,  and,  as  the  great  centre 
for  goldsmith's  work,  this  is  no  more  than  we  should 
expect.  But  Nurnberg  was  hardly  less  prolific.  At 
Basel,  almost  on  the  frontiers  of  Switzerland,  we 
shall  meet  with  Hans  Wydyz,  and  it  would  not  be 
easy  to  be  precise  with  regard  to  the  locality  of  the 
work  of  Conrad  Meit.  Other  French  and  Flemish 
work  in  boxwood  of  the  highest  possible  excellence 
exists  in  such  museums  as  those  of  the  Louvre  and  of 
Kensington  ;  but  admirable  as  may  be  the  specimens 
which  we  should  select,  these  are  of  a  character  and  of 
a  date  later  than  that  at  which  we  are  now,  with  some 
exceptions,  obliged  to  stop,  and  must  remain  for  some 
future  opportunity.  Speaking  generally,  it  may  be 
said  that  small  sculpture  in  wood  hardly  appealed  to 
the  genius  of  Italian  art.  They  preferred  to  deal  w^ith 
larger  effects,  although,  no  doubt,  in  northern  Italy,  in 
Lombardy  or  in  the  districts  of  Verona  and  Vicenza, 
there  was  a  considerable  industry  for  church  purposes. 
But  this  consisted  of  panels  with  pictorial  subjects  in 
relief,  or  figures  and  statuettes  for  devotional  use, 
turned  out  in  quantities  in  trade  workshops,  copied  or 
adapted  from  paintings  and  sculpture.  Still,  although 
w^e  are  carried  beyond  the  limits  of  date  and  style,  to 
which  as  a  general  rule  we  are  restricted,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  avoid  dealing  in  this  chapter  on  box- 
woods with  the  figure  of  Hercules  which  the  Wallace 
collection  is  fortunate  enough  to  possess.  It  is  a  chef 
142 


THE    WALLACE    HERCULES 

docuvre  of  the  most  pure  Renaissance  art,  one,  too,  of 
which  recent  research  and  the  identification  with  a 
contemporary  record  enables  us  to  name,  with  cer- 
tainty, the  sculptor.  Yet  beyond  the  bare  name,  we 
are  still  almost  completely  in  the  dark  regarding  the 
life-history  and  achievements  of  one  who  must  have 
been  in  the  first  rank  among  the  artists  of  his  time. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  story  of  the  acquisition  of  the 
piece  itself  is  almost  equally  mysterious.  Its  dtat 
civil  and  the  roll  of  its  former  possessors  would  be  of 
considerable  value  could  they  be  discovered.  Lost 
sight  of  for  three  hundred  years  at  least,  though 
doubtless  cherished  in  many  collections,  M.  Bonnaffd 
was  the  first  to  identify  it  with  a  figure  of  Hercules 
described  by  Bernardino  Scardeone  in  his  work  De 
Antiqititate  Urbis  Pataviae,  published  1560.  It  will 
suffice  to  translate  the  following  extract  from  the  Latin 
text,  p.  374 :  *  Every  one  is  astonished  at  the  boxwood 
Hercules  of  the  Paduan  goldsmith  Francesco  da  Sant' 
Agata,  which  may  be  seen  at  the  house  of  the  well- 
known  antiquary  Mark  Antony  Massimo  of  Padua : 
of  such  exceeding  beauty  of  form  and  approach  to 
human  truth  that  certainly  neither  Polycletus  in 
bronze  nor  Phidias  in  ivory  could  have  rendered  it  in  a 
more  expressive  manner.  The  high  price  testifies  also 
to  its  extreme  merit,  since  hardly  six  ounces  of  box- 
wood are  estimated  at,  it  is  said,  a  hundred  gold  crowns. 
This  Francesco,  as  may  be  imagined  from  the  work  in 
question,  was  a  very  great  sculptor:  it  is  surprising 
that  he  should  have  left  nothing  more  in  wood  than 
this  remarkable  Hercules,  the  admiration  of  every  one, 
and  esteemed  at  so  high  a  price.  He  sculptured  this 
piece,  as  I  have  heard,  in  his  leisure  moments,  in  the 
year  1520.'  We  have,  then,  no  more  precise  know- 
ledge of  Francesco  da  Sant'  Agata  than  that  he  must 
have  been  a  very  famous  sculptor  and  goldsmith  of  the 
early   cinquecento.      In    1520   the    Paduan    school    of 

143 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

marble  sculptors  and  bronzists  was  everywhere  cele- 
brated, and  no  doubt  the  sculptor  of  our  Hercules  was 
in  the  company  of  such  craftsmen  as  Vellano,  Dona- 
tello's  pupil,  and  Vellano's  still  more  famous  pupil, 
Riccio,  maker  of  the  famous  paschal  candlestick  of  San 
Antonio  at  Padua,  of  Minio,  of  Giovanni  Mosca,  the 
medallist,  and  many  others,  goldsmiths  as  well  as 
sculptors. 

The  Hercules  of  the  Wallace  Collection  (Plate  xxv.) 
is  a  figure  about  ten  and  a  half  inches  high,  standing 
erect,  and  in  a  defiant  attitude,  brandishing  a  huge  club, 
which  is  swung  round  to  the  back  of  the  head  in  the 
manner  in  which  a  modern  golfer  uses  his  weapon. 
The  perfect  proportions  of  the  figure,  the  absolute 
knowledge  of  anatomy,  and  its  treatment  in  accordance 
with  the  highest  classical  traditions,  the  life  and  ex- 
pression of  movement  do  not  require  to  be  insisted 
upon.  In  addition,  there  is  the  perfection  of  finish  in 
execution,  knowledge  of  the  material,  and  even  the 
charm  of  the  beautiful  piece  of  boxwood,  as  perfect 
to-day  in  colour  and  in  exquisite  polish,  or  patina,  as 
when  it  left  the  sculptor's  hands,  four  hundred  years 
ago.  By  general  admission,  this  figure,  which  from 
its  comparatively  small  dimensions  may  attract  but 
little  general  attention,  is  to  be  counted  amongst  the 
chefs-d'oeuvre  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  at  that  epoch 
when  Cellini,  whose  name  was  afterwards  to  be  so 
famous,  could  only  have  been  beginning  his  career,  and 
must  have  known  and  studied  it.  It  is  a  finer  figure 
than  the  well-known  bronze  Hercules  of  the  Ashmo- 
lean  Museum,  which  it  resembles  in  pose:  the  youthful 
head  is  more  graceful  and  attractive  than  that  of  the 
quite  elderly  man  of  the  latter  piece. 

We  have  little  cause  to  doubt  that  the  signature  opvs 

FRANCisci  AVRiFicis  •  p  •  connccts  the  Wallace  Hercules 

with  the  Paduan  Francesco,  and  that  he  was  a  goldsmith. 

It  seems  to  have  been  discovered  in  some  unknown  way 

144 


I'LA  TE  XXV 


TATUETTF.    BOXWOOD.    BY    KRANCKSCO  DA   SANT    AGATA.    SIXTKENTH   CENTURY 

WALLACE   O^LLECTION 
PA(,E    144 


THE    WALLACE    HERCULES 

by  M.  Debruge  Dumesnil  in  the  first  half  of  the  last 
century.  At  his  sale  it  was  sold  to  the  elder  Carrand 
for  300  francs.  By  Carrand's  son  it  was  sold  to  Comte 
Nieuwerkerke,  and  came  with  the  latter's  collection  into 
the  possession  of  Sir  Richard  Wallace.  It  is  not  a 
little  interesting  to  note  that  this  work  of  art,  valued 
in  its  own  day  at  ;^200,  was  in  the  nineteenth  century 
esteemed  at  ^12  only,  at  any  rate  acquired  for  that 
amount.  And  how  could  Carrand  p^re,  whose  magni- 
ficent collection  of  chefs-d'oeuvre  was  bequeathed  by  his 
natural  son  to  the  Bargello  at  Florence,  have  parted 
with  it  ?  The  habits  of  both  father  and  son  were 
eccentric.  The  elder  Carrand  had  an  admirable  taste 
and  the  luck  to  collect  when  objects  of  art  of  the 
Renaissance  and  moyen  dge  were  more  easily  to  be 
acquired  than  later  on.  He  himself,  though  he  ex- 
changed, never  sold,  and  would  hardly  have  parted 
with  this  figure.  The  son,  without  being  learned  in 
any  way,  had  iht  Jlair  of  the  dealer,  and  with  it  the 
instincts.  It  would  be  instructive  to  know  at  what 
price  Count  Nieuwerkerke  acquired  from  him  the 
Hercules.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  boxwood 
figures  will  become  more  and  more  sought  after,  and 
from  their  extreme  rarity — that  is,  when  of  the  highest 
class — will,  as  they  fully  deserve  to  do,  attain  prices  in 
the  market  not  inferior  to  the  ivories  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  There  is  in  the  Berlin  Museum  a  youthful 
nude  figure  in  boxwood,  with  uplifted  arms,  which  Dr. 
Bode  also  attributes  to  Francesco  da  Sant'  Agata,  and 
also  a  St.  Sebastian  :  both,  no  doubt,  Italian  of  about 
the  same  date  as  the  Hercules,  and  masterly  in  style 
and  execution. 

Boxwood,  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  begin- 
ning of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  becoming  a 
favourite  material,  and  displacing  ivory  in  Flanders 
and  in  Germany :  and  not  only  by  the  imagiers,  but 
naturally,  at  such  goldsmiths'  centres  as  at  Augsburg, 

^  145 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

for  use  as  patterns.  But,  of  course,  fine  patterns  would 
be  esteemed  as  cabinet-pieces,  and  about  this  time 
also  the  practice  of  making  portrait  medallions  was 
coming  in,  and  followed  by  the  best  masters  of  small 
sculpture  in  wood  and  in  lithographic  or  honestone. 
Before  its  dispersal  in  1890,  the  Spitzer  collection  was 
especially  rich  in  this  class  of  work.  We  cannot  now 
follow  the  fortunes  of  that  which  was  dispersed  in 
various  museums  and  in  the  great  private  collections  of 
Pierpont  Morgan  and  others.  Amongst  it,  and  now  in 
the  Louvre,  is  a  charming  example  of  the  fashion  to 
which  allusion  has  already  more  than  once  been  made 
here,  of  representing  holy  personages  in  the  gorgeous 
costumes  of  the  time.  None,  of  course,  would  suggest 
themselves  more  readily  than  the  Magdalen  in  the  days 
of  her  impenitence.  We  have  her  here  in  an  elegant 
ddcollet^  costume,  of  the  richest  character,  looking  up- 
wards with  hands  raised  in  an  attitude  of  prayer,  and 
holding  a  rosary.  It  is  early  sixteenth-century  work. 
From  the  same  collection  the  Louvre  has  also  a  fine 
Venus,  which  the  eminent  former  keeper,  Molinier, 
thought  to  be  by  Hans  Schwarz — a  boxwood  sculptor 
with  whom  we  shall  presently  meet  as  the  earliest 
and  best  of  the  medallion  carvers — and  a  fine  bas- 
relief,  with  the  favourite  subject  of  a  Young  Girl 
and  Death.  The  latter,  which  bears  his  monogram,  is 
no  doubt  rightly  attributed  to  him.  The  Venus  is 
an  example  of  a  prevailing  and  rapidly  increasing 
taste  of  the  time  amongst  German  sculptors  of  small 
work  of  all  kinds,  which  there  will  be  frequent 
occasion  to  note.  The  Renaissance,  and  the  passion 
for  naturalism  had  changed  the  ideals  and  the  con- 
ditions of  artist  life.  There  was  a  rage  for  this  kind 
of  sculpture  in  Germany,  and  all  were  not  masters  who 
followed  it.  Doubtless  this  Venus  has  its  merits  and 
shows  a  not  unpractised  hand,  but  even  if  that  hand  is 
of  Hans  Schwarz  himself  it  is  governed  by  the  German 
146 


BOXWOOD    AND    PEARWOOD 

predilections  of  the  time.  She  is  not  beautiful,  this 
woman  of  the  people  with  a  knotted  handkerchief  on 
the  head,  hands  of  exaggerated  length,  and  limbs  which 
by  no  means  can  be  associated  with  classic  grace.  It 
is  a  naked  Gretchen,  and,  this  conceded,  we  may  be 
prepared  to  accord  not  a  little  admiration  to  the  talent 
of  the  artist  in  his  reproduction  from  his  model,  and 
his  technical  skill.  In  the  boxwood  figures,  plaquettes, 
and  bas-reliefs  of  this  time,  we  meet  but  rarely  the 
devotional  subjects  which  up  to  about  fifty  years  before 
were  almost  the  only  themes.  They  preferred  to  work 
from  Italian  bronzes,  to  adapt  from  a  Venus  of  Giovanni 
da  Bologna  perhaps,  or  to  copy  from  innumerable  wood- 
cuts or  etchings.  There  are  few  German  statuettes  in 
l)oxwood  of  saints :  what  there  are,  exhibit  more 
pleasure  in  rich  contemporary  dresses  than  devotional 
ideas.  Religious  fervour  was  dying  out,  as  it  became 
more  paying  to  work  for  the  luxurious  requirements  of 
princes  than  for  the  love  of  the  church.  There  is 
almost  a  contemptuous  making  use  of  holy  figures  and 
legends  for  their  purely  decorative  value  or  to  satisfy 
some  aesthetic  feeling  which  the  growth  of  the  Renais- 
sance encouraged.  The  boxwood  semi-classical  St. 
Sebastian  in  the  Louvre,  for  example,  is  purely  pagan : 
or  again,  in  that  of  the  Berlin  Museum  one  has  to 
make  diligent  search  for  the  marks  of  the  arrows  before 
accepting  that  title  instead  of  perhaps  an  Adonis  or  a 
Narcissus.  Both  Dr.  Bode  and  Fabriczy  have  published 
the  beautiful  pearwood  relief,  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  of 
the  head  of  St.  John  Baptist  on  a  charger  upheld  by 
putti.  The  size  for  one  piece  of  wood — 16  in.  x  13-!^ 
in. — is  remarkable.  The  group  bears  the  signature 
FRANCiscvs- jvLi- VERONEN,  possibly,  but  by  neither 
of  the  first-mentioned  authorities  thought  probably, 
identical  with  Francesco  da  Sant'  Agata.  Dr.  Bode 
comments  upon  the  'great  want  of  proportion  in  the 
figures,  a  certain  lack  of  freedom  in  the  carriage  of  the 

147 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

two  angels,  a  stereotyped  manner  of  arranging  the  hair, 
and  obviously  slight  knowledge  of  the  human  form' 
[Burlington  Magazine,  May  1904).  That  is  as  may  be, 
but  at  least  the  head  itself  is  masterly  and  painter-like 
in  conception  and  expression.  It  would  be  easy  to 
continue  the  selection  of  boxwood  figures  and  groups 
from  various  collections  which,  if  not  all  of  the  highest 
distinction,  present  points  of  interest,  but  without 
multiplying  our  illustrations  beyond  our  limits,  mere 
lists  would  become  tedious.  Amongst  such  pieces,  of 
somewhat  late  date,  the  figure  of  a  Canon  kneeling  in 
prayer,  at  one  time  in  the  Odiot  collection  and  now 
at  Kensington,  deserves  attention.  This  small  box- 
wood figure,  inscribed  '  Broeder  Cornelis  van  der  Tyt 
A°  S  1562,'  is  evidently  a  portrait,  and  of  remarkably 
careful  execution  in  such  details  as  the  texture  of  the 
surplice,  of  the  knitted  gloves,  and  of  the  robes.  We 
are  still  confronted  with  the  same  difficulties  with 
regard  to  authorship  as  has  been  the  case  with  so 
much  carved  woodwork  of  German,  Flemish,  and 
French  origin.  But  although  it  is  only  quite  lately 
that  particular  attention  has  been  directed  to  these 
most  charming  works,  recent  research  has  begun  to 
afford  at  least  some  means  of  classification. 

The  great  influence  of  the  Netherlands  on  the  arts  of 
other  countries,  and  the  high  reputation  of  its  sculptors 
during  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
have  already  several  times  occupied  our  attention.  It 
is,  indeed,  hardly  surprising  that  this  should  have 
happened  when  we  consider  the  artistic  genius  of  its 
people,  and  in  addition  the  dynastic  conditions  and  the 
changes  in  government  which  brought  them  into  close 
contact  with  so  many  different  countries.  In  1369 
Philip  the  Bold,  son  of  the  King  of  France,  united  the 
Courts  of  Burgundy  and  Flanders  by  his  marriage 
with  Margaret,  heiress  of  Count  Louis  11.  Under  the 
princes  of  the  house  of  Burgundy,  John  the  Fearless, 
148 


THE    REGENT    MARGARET 

Philip  the  Good,  and  Charles  the  Bold,  who  married 
Margaret  of  York,  sister  to  Edward  iv.,  the  luxur)'  of 
their  Courts  was  unsurpassed,  calling  for  the  employ- 
ment of  the  best  artists  from  the  countries  with  which 
they  were  connected.  In  1477  Flanders,  through  the 
marriage  of  Mary,  daughter  of  Charles  the  Bold  and 
Margaret  of  York,  with  Maximilian,  falls  under  the 
dominion  of  Austria,  and  Burgundy  returns  to  France. 
For  the  moment  we  need  not  concern  ourselves  with 
the  subjection  of  the  Netherlands  to  Spain  about, 
again,  another  hundred  years  later  (1555). 

At  the  death  of  Philippe  le  Beau  in  1506  the 
government  of  the  Low  Countries  was  confided  by 
the  Emperor  Maximilian  to  Margaret  of  Austria, 
widow  of  Philibert  of  Savoy,  whom  he  named  Regent 
or  governess.  This  princess  was  even  more  strongly 
inclined  to  luxurious  display  and  the  encouragement 
of  the  arts  than  her  predecessors.  Her  early  years 
had  been  passed  at  the  Court  of  Savoy,  where  the 
Italian  Renaissance  had  already  begun  to  assert  itself, 
and  she  was  therefore  naturally  influenced  by  the 
Italian  artists  who  had  there  established  themselves  in 
considerable  numbers.  Yet  during  her  short  married 
life  the  attractions  of  the  Flemish  style  had  not  been 
lost  upon  her  even  if  they  had  not  been  entirely  those 
of  her  predilection.  At  the  death  of  her  husband  she 
conceived  the  project  of  erecting  a  magnificent  tomb 
both  to  his  beloved  memory  and  as  a  place  where  she 
herself  should  rest.  For  this  purpose  she  sought  for 
artists  amongst  the  greatest  of  the  time  who  should  be 
capable  of  uniting  the  principles  of  Gothic  art,  as  she 
knew  it,  in  its  French  and  Flemish  forms,  with  those 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance  which  had  already  become 
strong  in  its  all-conquering  course.  In  the  same 
way  she  chose  for  the  superb  monument  which  she 
caused  to  be  erected  in  the  church  of  St.  Nicolas 
of  Tolentino   at    Brou  (Bourg-en-Bresse),    Lucas  van 

149 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Berghem  as  architect,  and  with  him  John  of  Brussels 
and  Conrad  Meit.  With  the  two  former  we  are  not 
particularly  concerned,  but  the  art  of  Conrad  Meit,  and 
its  relationship  with  our  boxwood  carvings,  is  a  matter 
sufficient  to  necessitate  some  slight  references  at  least 
to  the  monument  generally  and  to  the  Regent  Margaret 
herself.  The  tomb  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
sepulchral  monuments  in  existence.  It  is  a  mass  of 
rich  Gothic  work  with  numbers  of  figures  in  marble 
and  alabaster.  Beneath  the  most  richly  carved  canopy 
work  are  the  recumbent  effigies  of  Philibert  and  his 
wife,  the  latter  twice  repeated — in  death  and  in  life — 
and  of  his  mother,  Margaret  of  Savoy.  Completed  in 
1526,  the  Regent  herself  died  and  was  buried  at  Brou 
in  1530.  Conrad  Meit — '  Conrad  Maistre,  notre  tailleur 
d'ymages,'  as  he  is  styled  in  documents  in  the  archives 
of  Lille — seems  to  have  entered  the  service  of  Margaret 
of  Austria  about  the  year  1514.  There  is  documentary 
evidence  also  that  he  made  for  her  in  15 18  two  figures 
of  Hercules,  one  of  wood  and  one  of  bronze,  a  box- 
wood Christ  as  the  Gardener,  and  two  portraits  of 
herself.  Our  information,  generally,  concerning  Meit, 
is  still  but  scanty.  We  do  not  even  know  with 
certainty  what  portions  of  the  monument  at  Brou, 
erected  on  French  soil,  are  due  to  him.  But  if  a 
sculptor  in  Flemish  employ,  he  was  nevertheless  a  true 
German.  A  figure  in  alabaster  of  Judith,  presently  to 
be  noticed,  is  signed  by  him  conrat  •  meit  •  von  • 
WORMS.  As,  unfortunately,  we  have  evidences  only  of 
style  to  guide  us  for  purposes  of  comparison  between 
the  sculptured  figures  at  Brou  and  those  in  alabaster 
and  boxwood  with  which  we  are  particularly  concerned, 
it  will  be  sufficient  to  confine  ourselves  to  the  beautiful 
effigy  on  the  lower  part  of  the  monument,  representing 
the  Regent  lying  in  death,  and  one  from  among  the 
numerous  putti,  or  cherubs,  in  alabaster.  Doubtless, 
besides  the   architect   Lucas  van   Berghem,  Meit  had 

150 


CONRAD    ME  IT 

many  assistants,  and  probably  he  himself  was  not  the 
sculptor  of  all  the  beautiful  Renaissance  putti  on  this 
Gothic  tomb.  It  would  carry  us  too  far  and  must  be 
left  to  the  reader  to  follow  for  himself  the  comparisons 
in  detail  which  are  of  interest  with  regard  to  some 
boxwood  figures  presently  to  be  noticed.  He  will  find 
ample  material  and  excellent  illustrations — which  our 
limits  prevent  us  from  giving  here — both  of  the  tomb 
and  the  figures  in  the  article  by  Wilhelm  Voge  in  the 
Year-Book  of  the  Prussian  Art  Collections,  Tom.  xxix. 
There  is  one  figure  at  least,  the  one  most  important  for 
our  purpose,  which  may  be  accepted  as  the  work  of 
Meit.  It  is  the  putto  with  the  gauntlet.  Whether 
Meit  had  ever  been  in  Italy  is  not  known,  but  un- 
questionably his  art  was  strongly  influenced  therefrom, 
and  we  cannot  forget  also  his  friendship  with  Diirer, 
who  became  intimate  with  him  when  he  visited  the 
Low  Countries  in  1520.  Diirer  speaks  of  him  as 
'  mysterious,'  and  as  known  in  Italy  as  Corrado 
Fiammingo — prince  of  Flemish  sculptors.  And,  again, 
as  *  that  excellent  carver,  whose  equal  I  have  never 
met.'  A  German  of  the  Palatinate  by  birth,  his  figures 
of  Judith,  and  those  of  Adam  and  Eve  which  we  shall 
presently  connect  with  him,  are  unmistakably  German 
also.  Yet,  even  if  by  him,  we  do  not  know  the  date  of 
their  execution,  and  when  we  consider  his  experience 
at  the  Court  of  Margaret  of  Austria,  his  probable  long 
sojourn  at  Brou,  and  in  all  probability  his  journeys  to 
Italy,  it  is  difficult  not  to  be  inclined  to  consider  him 
as  belonging  to  Flanders. 

The  learned  curator  of  the  Berlin  Museum  has  also 
addressed  himself  particularly  to  the  small  sculpture 
work  of  Meit  in  an  article  in  the  Aii^inal  before  men- 
tioned (Tom.  xxii.).  If  I  am  not  mistaken  he  still 
ascribes  to  him  not  only  the  boxwood  statuettes  of 
Adam  and  Eve  in  the  Gotha  Museum,  and  the  similar 
ones    in    the   Austrian    Imperial    collection,    but   even 

151 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the    portrait    busts    in    the    British    Museum   (which 
the  authorities   there  have  not   ventured    to   describe 
further  than  as  of  a  man  and  woman),   the  bust  in 
the  Berlin  Museum  which  is  ahiiost  identical  with  the 
first  of  these,  and  the  one  in  the  Bavarian  National 
Museum  so  nearly  alike  to  the  other.     In  considering 
the  series  of  Adam  and  Eve  full-length  figures — and 
I  venture  to  say  that  the  busts  attributed  to  Riemen- 
schneider  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  are  in 
the  same  category — we  have  to  take  as  our  starting- 
point  an  admirable  alabaster  statuette  in  the  museum 
at    Munich    representing   Judith    with    the    head    of 
Holofernes.      In  all  the  numerous  German  figures  of 
this   kind  and  period — either  statuettes  or  small  bas- 
reliefs — we  cannot  fail  to  notice  the  tendency  towards, 
and  fondness  for,  an  exaggerated  naturalism.     It  was 
not  a  striving  after  the  representation  of  beauty  for  its 
own  sake ;  there  was  no  attempt  at   a  realization  of 
Greek  ideals,  but  inspired,  no  doubt,  by  some  mistaken 
idea  of  the  Renaissance,  there  was  an  almost  brutal 
determination  to  go  straight  to  nature,  omitting  nothing, 
modifying   nothing.       In    the   alabaster   statuette    the 
Judith  of  the  scriptural  narrative  is  absolutely  naked, 
with  an  uncompromising  realism  that  finds  a  parallel 
nowhere   but    in    Germany.      The   youthful    figure   is 
strictly  the  artist's  model  as  he  found  her,  far  indeed 
removed  from  any  attempt  at  idealism.     The  too  long 
body  is  set  on   thick   short   legs,   with   very  sloping 
shoulders,   flabby   and  squat ;    the  anatomy  is  some- 
what  lost    in   the   plump   fiesh-covering.       It   is    not 
the  figure  of  a  strong  active  girl,  but  rather  of  one 
too   well    nourished    and    enervated :    chosen   perhaps 
from  some  notion  of  suggestion  of  the  East  and  the 
nearest   to   that   according   to   the   German  idea.      It 
must  surely  be  conceded  that  in  this,  as  in  the  other 
figures  of  similar  character,  the  intention  of  the  artist 
was  the  presentation  of  a  vision  of  beauty  as  he  himself 
152 


CONRAD    MEIT 

conceived  it  to  be.  The  fault  lay  not  with  him,  but 
in  the  want  of  a  better  model.  Vasari,  in  his  Lives 
of  the  Painters,  speaking  of  Durer,  says  that  he  would 
have  done  better  work  if  he  had  had  better  nude 
models  :  '  for  these,'  he  says,  '  must  have  had  ill-formed 
figures,  as  indeed  the  Germans,  for  the  most  part  have, 
when  undressed,  although  one  sees  many  in  those 
countries  who,  when  dressed,  appear  to  be  very  fine 
figures.'  Yet  there  certainly  had  not  been  for  a  con- 
siderable time  any  particular  avoidance  of  the  nude, 
from  life,  and  Meit's  contemporary,  Lucas  Cranach,  in 
his  pictures  shows  no  want  of  elegance  and  seductive, 
if  German,  models.  Granted,  however,  the  too  obtrusive 
naturalism,  the  work  is  admirable  in  technique  and  in 
directness  of  touch  :  admirable  in  the  rendering  of  soft 
satiny  skin,  and  in  suggestion — if  no  more  than  sug- 
gestion— of  the  muscular  anatomy  which  is  too  fully 
furnished.  The  head  itself  is  masterly,  and  one  could 
wish  to  find  no  fault  in  the  sweetness  of  expression, 
and  the  refinement  in  the  arrangement  and  treatment 
of  the  curly  hair.  Too  sweet  is  the  smile  :  too  seductive 
to  accompany  the  gruesome  horror  of  the  severed  head 
which  the  girl  sustains  with  one  hand.  It  would  seem, 
then,  almost  to  come  to  this,  that  it  is  the  technical 
handling,  the  execution  of  such  a  work  which  is  borne 
in  upon  one,  more  than  its  intrinsic  charm.  It  is  no 
first  effort  or  production  of  a  natural  untaught  genius. 
Meit  must  have  already  known  a  good  deal  about 
Italy.     Yet  the  figure  is  German. 

In  the  boxwood  statuettes  of  Adam  and  Eve,  of  the 
Gotha  Museum,  we  are  confronted,  though  certainly 
from  another  model,  with  even  more  realistic  fidelity 
to  nature,  with  the  same  masterly  rendering  of  soft 
satiny  skin  and  somewhat  flabby  flesh  in  both  the 
male  and  female  figures,  the  same  short  bodies  and 
short  thick  legs :  similar  handling  of  the  curly  heads, 
similar   narrow    very    sloping    shoulders,    and    small, 

153 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

hardly  developed,  bust  of  the  Eve.  Adam's  head  is 
proportionately  much  too  large,  and,  granting  the  im- 
perfections of  the  model,  the  lumbar  muscles  and  folds 
of  flesh  below  the  waist  are  very  finely  expressed  in 
the  back  of  the  figure.  The  technique  of  the  Adam 
and  Eve  of  the  Imperial  Museum,  Vienna,  at  one  time 
in  the  Boehm  collection — this  boy  and  girl  Adam  and 
Eve — presents  striking  similarities  with  that  of  Meit's 
putto  at  Brou.  Adam,  indeed,  might  be  not  more  than 
about  twelve  years  old.  His  almond-shaped  eyes  have 
a  languid  expression,  and  his  mouth  is  half  open  as  if 
speaking  and  gently  remonstrating.  The  hair  is  differ- 
ently treated  from  the  Adam  of  the  Gotha  Museum  : 
it  has  more  of  the  character  of  stone  work,  and  of 
the  alabaster  of  Brou.  We  find  in  the  Eve  the  same 
bulging  forehead  as  in  the  Judith,  but  the  bust  is  more 
fully  developed  though  still  of  extremely  youthful 
type.  The  pair  are  probably  much  later  than  that  of 
Gotha,  in  which  there  is  no  trace  of  Italian  influence. 

We  may  be  very  well  content  with  these  two  pairs 
of  figures  of  our  first  parents,  in  which  they  are  in  the 
first  blush  of  newly  created  youth,  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  decide  which  is  the  most  charming.  That  is 
to  say,  when  we  have  got  over  the  novelty  of  the  first 
impression  of  the  mannerism  and  of  the  naive  and 
apparently  untutored  art.  Meit  must  have  known 
Diirer's  famous  Eve  of  1504,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine  that  the  influences  by  which  he  would  have 
been  affected  during  his  long  connexion  with  the  court 
of  the  Netherlands  should  not  have  weaned  him  from 
his  too  German  proclivities,  and  inclined  him — as  in 
the  later  days  of  his  friend  Diirer — to  Italian  refine- 
ment. The  sculptor  of  these  figures  may  have  been 
assisted  by  Diirer's  plate,  but  he  evidently  worked  from 
a  living  model.  It  can  hardly  be  asserted  as  con- 
clusively proved  that  they  are  from  the  same  hand, 
however  strong  the  analogies  may  be,  but  that  they  are 

154 


I 'LA  I  I:    XXi  I 


y.  s 


BOXWOOD    BUSTS 

nearly  related,  and  that  Conrad  Meit  was  no  stranger 
to  them  may  be  accepted  as  certain.  Of  them  all  I 
should  like  to  associate  with  him  the  Vienna  pair  and 
the  busts  in  the  British  and  Berlin  museums. 

We  have  not  yet  done  with  the  interesting  figure  of 
the  Regent  of  the  Netherlands  and  with  her  favourite 
sculptor.  In  the  collection  bequeathed  to  the  nation 
by  Baron  Ferdinand  de  Rothschild,  known  as  the 
Waddesdon  bequest,  from  which  also  other  treasures 
have  been  selected  for  this  book,  are  two  portrait  busts. 
They  are,  according  to  the  catalogue,  of  walnut,  and 
represent  a  young  man  and  a  young  woman  in  the  cos- 
tumes of  the  early  sixteenth  century.  As  examples  of 
skilful  portrait  sculpture,  neither  too  realistic  nor  over 
idealized,  they  would  be  remarkable  in  any  material, 
and  are,  therefore,  of  still  greater  interest  in  that  they 
represent  in  wood,  with  the  others  with  which  they  are 
connected,  the  highest  excellence  of  any  examples 
which  could  be  produced.  Whatever  ultimate  con- 
clusions we  may  come  to,  there  is  certainly  not  a  little 
to  be  said  in  favour  of  the  supposition  that  in  the  lady 
we  have  a  portrait  of  Margaret  of  Austria  herself. 
There  is  in  the  Bavarian  National  Museum  another 
bust  in  many  respects  identical,  which  Dr.  Bode  un- 
hesitatingly considers  to  be  of  that  princess.  In  the 
British  Museum  example  Margaret  is  in  widow's 
weeds,  so  that  if  the  ascription  is  correct  it  would  not 
be  difficult  to  be  fairly  accurate  as  to  date :  that  is  to 
say,  not  earlier  than  1504  or  later  than  1530.  And,  if 
we  may  judge  the  age  of  the  lady,  she  would  be  some- 
where about  forty.  The  museum  catalogue,  however, 
thinks  this  to  be  about  twenty  to  twenty-five.  Beauti- 
ful, Margaret  was  not,  perhaps,  though  her  sepulchral 
figures  at  Brou  are  full  of  sweet  expression,  but  with 
little  resemblance,  it  may  be  said,  to  these  busts.  In 
the  busts  there  is  no  flattering,  toning-down  of  the 
rather  puffy  features,  and  though  that  of  the   British 

155 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Museum  is  the  younger  of  the  two,  in  both  there  are 
the  same  broad,  thick  nose,  fleshy  cheeks  and  chin,  and 
prominent  thick  lips.  The  Renaissance  Museum  in 
Berlin  possesses,  curiously  enough,  a  bust  of  a  young 
man  which  is  also  as  nearly  identical  with  the  one  in 
the  London  Museum  as  in  the  case  of  the  lady.  Very 
interesting  is  the  man's  costume  :  the  fur-bordered  robe 
and  the  broad  hat  half  covering  the  elegant  net  which 
confines  the  hair.  The  latter  fashion  came  in  in  the  first 
quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  probably  not  earlier 
than  1 5 15,  and  was  common  throughout  the  greater 
part  of  Northern  Europe,  and  even  in  Italy,  during 
almost  the  whole  of  the  century.  We  shall  find  it 
repeated  again  and  again  in  the  medallion  portraits 
next  to  be  considered.  In  itself,  it  disposes  of  the 
earlier  identification  of  the  busts  with  Charles  the  Bold 
and  Margaret,  sister  of  our  own  King  Edward  iv. 
The  medallion  on  the  hat  of  the  London  male  figure 
(that  on  the  Berlin  bust  is  now  missing)  bears  a  St. 
Margaret  killing  the  dragon,  and  the  motto  ie  •  ne  • 
scAi  :  very  possibly  a  medallion  of  a  much  earlier  date 
than  the  time  of  the  wearer.  The  costume  of  the 
British  Museum  lady,  with  the  plain,  partly  open 
chemisette,  close-fitting  body,  and  well-executed  drapery 
of  the  loose  sleeves,  and  the  simple  bead  necklace,  is 
much  more  elegant  and  attractive  than  the  pleated 
^ritiinpe  which  conceals  the  neck  and  bust  in  the  case 
of  the  Munich  figure.  Judging  from  the  costumes, 
then,  and  the  apparent  age  of  Margaret,  if  it  is  she,  the 
date  of  these  busts  would  be  about  1520- 1530.  But 
Philibert  died  young  in  1504.  The  young  man 
cannot,  therefore,  be  that  prince.  What,  then,  is  the 
connexion  ?  And,  again — if  Dr.  Bode  is  correct  in  the 
case  of  one  at  least — what  is  there  to  explain  two  such 
similar  figures  as  those  of  the  lady  ;  both  to  be  ascribed 
to  Meit,  but  the  one  in  widow's  weeds  for  a  husband 
who  died  in   1504,  the  other  more  youthful?     In  addi- 

•56 


BOXWOOD    BUSTS 

tion  to  this  we  are  to  be  precluded  by  the  costume  from 
dating,  what  seem  to  be  companion  busts,  earlier  than 
1 515,  when  Margaret,  however  devoted  a  wife  we  know 
her  to  have  been,  would  surely  have  put  off  her 
mourning.  But  yet  again,  is  it  the  same  personage  in 
both  the  busts  of  a  lady?  In  the  one  case  it  will  be 
noticed  that  the  hair  is  smooth  and  straight,  in  the 
other  wavy.  Can  we  then  be  certain  that  in  either 
we  have  a  portrait  of  Margaret  of  Austria  ?  Perhaps 
not,  and  it  may  be  remarked  that  while  Dr.  Bode 
unhesitatingly  identifies  with  her  the  Munich  bust, 
he  cautiously  labels  the  British  Museum  one  a  '  jimge 
Frail'  only.  Finally,  we  have  also  in  the  British 
Museum  a  boxwood  medallion  of  the  Regent,  which 
offers  practically  no  resemblance  to  the  busts  in  question. 
A  brief  allusion  must  be  made  to  the  fine  honestone 
busts  in  the  Dreyfus  collection  at  Paris,  which  repre- 
sent a  younger  man  and  woman  in  almost  identical 
costumes  with  the  wooden  ones,  and  are  evidently  by 
the  same  sculptor.  That  is,  by  Meit,  if  it  be  he  in  any 
one  of  the  cases.  The  material  here  used  would  seem 
still  further  to  complicate  the  question.  A  short  men- 
tion must  suffice  also  for  two  rather  larger  busts  in 
wood,  said  to  be  of  Philip  the  Bold  and  the  Elector 
Frederick  11.  in  the  Munich  Museum  :  probably  Augs- 
burg work  of  about  1540.  They  have  been  attributed 
to  Haguenauer,  to  whose  medallion  work  we  shall  come 
presently. 

Every  country,  in  Gothic  and  early  Renaissance 
times,  had  its  own  favourite,  or  popular,  subjects.  In 
Germany  and  the  Netherlands  none  was  more  so,  in 
painting  and  in  sculpture,  than  the  story  of  our  first 
parents.  We  are  familiar  with  the  Adam  and  Eve  of 
the  Ghent  altarpiece.  There  are  famous  examples  by 
Diirer  and  the  other  great  etchers  and  engravers,  and 
figures  and  busts  innumerable.  Such  are  the  busts  at 
Kensington,  or,  again,  such    bas-reliefs   as  the  small 

157 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

pearwood  panel  in  the  same  museum  with  the  Diirer 
cipher  or  signature,  and  there  are  many  others  in  metal 
or  honestone.  Even  in  wood  we  could  not  attempt  to 
follow  them  all.  But  it  is  necessary  to  take  one  more 
pair.  They  introduce  us  to  a  comparatively  new 
name,  although,  unfortunately,  it  is  hardly  more  than  a 
name,  so  scanty,  as  usual,  is  our  information  concern- 
ing the  bearer.  In  the  Basel  Museum  there  is  a  group 
of  small  boxwood  figures — about  six  inches  in  height 
— of  Adam  and  Eve,  which  have  much  in  common 
with  the  type  with  which  we  have  just  been  occupied. 
In  this  case  they  form  part  of  a  pictorial  representation 
of  the  Fall.  The  boxwood  figures  are  set  on  a  land- 
scape ground  of  limewood.  Eve  smilingly  holds  out 
the  apple  to  Adam,  and,  in  the  background,  is  the  tree 
with  the  serpent.  In  both  we  have  again  the  same 
unrestrained  realism  in  which  a  by  no  means  perfect 
model  is  relentlessly  copied,  defects  and  all.  Less 
physically  plastic,  perhaps,  than  the  type  from  which 
Meit  worked  his  Judith,  it  is  the  same  short  and  plump 
Eve  dear  to  the  German  taste  of  the  time.  Her  head 
is  charming,  the  soft  waving  hair  restrained  by  the  fillet 
encircling  it.  But  the  Adam  surely  is  a  wretched  crea- 
ture. He  is  thin,  weak,  flat-chested,  narrow-shouldered, 
with  prominent  collar-bones,  thin,  almost  muscleless, 
limbs  with  unduly-strained  sinews,  and  the  too-large 
curly  head  characteristic  of  this  art  of  the  time.  Eve 
smiles  seductively  as  she  tenders  the  apple.  Adam  is 
distressed,  hesitating,  imploring.  There  is  perhaps 
more  art  in  these  figures,  after  all,  than  we  might  be 
inclined  to  accord  to  them  from  a  first  comparison  with 
the  more  attractive  pair  of  the  Vienna  collection.  The 
presence  of  the  initials — H  on  one  block  of  limewood, 
W  on  the  other — has  led  to  the  opinion  of  recent 
critics  that  we  are  to  ascribe  this  group  to  the  sculptor 
of  the  Visit  of  the  Magi  (also  in  wood)  in  the  cathedral 
of  Freiburg-im-Breisgau.     That  is  to  say,  to  a  certain 

158 


/"/  M  TK  .\Xl  7/ 


1.    GROUP.     (iERMAN.     ST.   CHRISTOPHER. 

VICTORIA    A.-JD    ALBERT    MCSEfM   (mASKKI.I.   COLLECTION) 

•i.    STATUETTE.     WENXZEL  JAMNITZER.     BOXWOOD.     GERMAN. 
SIXTEENTH   CT-  —■  '•■ 

PACE   \y, 


HANS    WYDYZ 

I.  O.  Wydyz  if  the  inscription  with  the  date  1505  is  to 
be  relied  upon.  But  of  this  Wydyz  we  are  without 
any  further  information,  nor  can  there  be  any  certainty 
that  the  signature  refers  to  a  sculptor.  If,  however,  we 
take  it  to  be  that  of  the  Master  of  the  Freiburg  altar- 
piece,  we  may  conjecturally  also  connect  him  with  a 
Martyrdom  of  St.  Sebastian  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich 
Museum,  Berlin.  Some  see  in  this,  too,  a  strong 
resemblance  to  the  Basel  Adam.  But  it  is  entirely 
unsafe  to  rely  upon  such  weak  analogies,  for  which 
other  circumstances  might  easily  account,  and  though 
the  figure  of  the  martyr  may  fairly  be  connected  with 
the  style  of  the  sculptor  of  the  altarpiece,  it  would  not 
suffice  to  establish  an  affinity  with  the  Basel  piece. 
The  Adoration  of  the  Magi  is  surmounted  by  figures 
of  Our  Lord,  the  Virgin  and  St.  John,  and  if  there 
should  be  grounds  for  ascribing  this  group  and  the  one 
below  to  the  same  sculptor,  then  we  should  be  fairly  on 
the  way  towards  giving  to  him  also  the  Adam  and 
Eve.  In  the  figure  of  Our  Lord  blessing  and  in  the 
crucifix  we  have,  as  typical  of  the  sculptor,  the  three 
folds  of  flesh  below  the  ribs  (although  the  body  is 
nearly  upright),  the  contracted  waist,  the  peculiar  curve 
of  the  hips  and  the  anatomy  of  the  arms.  There  are 
points  in  the  group  of  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Sebastian 
which  may  be  compared  with  a  fine  boxwood  figure, 
which  it  will  be  convenient  to  take  here,  but  with  no 
idea  of  suggesting  that  they  are  by  the  same  sculptor. 
It  is  the  figure  at  one  time  in  the  Bonnaffe  collection, 
supposed  to  be  a  portrait-statuette  of  Wenczel  Jamnitzer 
the  great  Nurnberg  goldsmith  :  possibly,  even,  a  self- 
portrait.  It  is  plainly  a  masterly  piece,  representing  an 
elderly  long-bearded  man,  draped  in  a  flowing  mantle, 
more  suggestive  of  the  bronzist's  or  goldsmith's  art  than 
of  the  qualities  of  wood  sculpture  for  its  own  sake.  The 
Basel  St.  Sebastian  has  a  certain  resemblance  to  it  in  the 
pose  of  the  left  leg,  in  the  general  movement,  and  in  the 

159 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

anatomy  of  the  foot.  There  is,  of  course,  evidence  of 
considerable  acquaintance  with  Italian  art,  but  it  is  far 
behind  the  Jamnitzer  figure  in  originality,  in  nobility  of 
expression,  and  in  simple  elegance  of  the  drapery.  The 
subject  of  boxwood  and  pearwood  figures  generally 
can  hardly  be  left  without  a  passing  reference  to  the 
very  powerful  group,  in  pearwood,  in  the  Waddesdon 
bequest,  representing  Antaeus  supporting  the  wounded 
Hercules.  It  stands  almost  a  foot  in  height,  and  is 
said  to  be  Flemish  of  the  late  sixteenth  century.  We 
have  here  another  instance  of  the  uncertainties  which 
still  surround  us.  Whether  the  origin  be  of  Flanders, 
of  Niirnberg,  or  even  of  Augsburg,  might  surely  be 
conjectured,  but  in  each  case  no  artist's  name  suggests 
itself,  or  country,  except  Italy,  from  which  we  may  be 
sure  it  did  not  proceed. 


i6o 


CHAPTER    IX 

GERMAN  MEDALLIONS  LN  WOOD 

IN  a  comprehensive  work  of  this  kind,  in  which 
an  endeavour  is  made  to  give  a  general 
idea  of  a  very  extensive  subject,  it  becomes 
advisable  from  time  to  time  to  clear  the  way.  Every 
division  with  which  we  have  to  deal  is  of  importance, 
greater  or  less  as  the  case  may  be,  and  in  reality 
demands  a  monograph.  The  subject  of  medallions  in 
wood  is  also  intimately  connected  with  that  of  the  sister 
arts  of  cast  and  struck  medals,  and  here  we  come  into 
especial  contact  with  Italy  and  her  great  bronze 
sculptors  and  goldsmiths,  and  with  the  plaquettes  and 
panels  in  lithographic  stone  which  form  such  a  feature 
of  German  art  of  the  sixteenth  century.  These,  again, 
cannot  be  dissociated  from  the  great  names  of  Diirer, 
Wohlgemut,  and  so  many  other  wood  engravers  and 
ornamentists.  While,  therefore,  diversions  from  the 
principal  subject  are  inevitable,  the  limits  of  this 
publication  make  it  imperative  that  they  should  be 
allusive  only.  Nor  will  it  be  possible  to  do  more  than 
make  a  choice  of  three  or  four  from  among  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  German  boxwood  medallion 
sculptors  and  of  their  work,  and  this  as  examples  of 
wood  sculpture  only,  without  reference  to  those  in 
metal.  Medals  are  coinlike  pieces  cast  or  struck  in 
metal,  or  carved  in  wood,  either  as  finished  memorials, 
and  works  of  art  in  themselves,  or  for  pattern  pieces  to 
be  reproduced  by  casting  in  metal.  Those  with  which 
L  i6i 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

we  are  now  concerned  bear  for  the  most  part  portraits 
in  relief  of  distinguished  personages  of  the  time,  or  ot 
less  important  people,  who  delighted  in  having  them 
executed  much  in  the  same  way  as  nowadays  the  aid 
of  the  photographer  is  called  in.  They  were  portable 
likenesses  for  friendly  exchange :  expensive,  no  doubt, 
but  all  classes  indulged  in  them  according  to  their 
means.  An  artist  who  was  in  fashion,  such  as  a 
Haguenauer  for  example,  would  no  doubt  have  counted 
amongst  his  patrons  every  one  distinguished  in  art,  in 
letters,  or  in  other  ways,  as  in  our  own  times  the  por- 
trait drawings  by  Richmond  abounded.  Thus  it  has 
resulted  that,  apart  from  their  merits  as  works  of 
art,  these  medallions  form  a  remarkable  addition  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  personal  appearance  of  many 
celebrated  personages,  and  of  the  costumes,  especially 
the  headdresses,  of  the  period.  Medallic  art  is  due 
to  the  Italian  Renaissance,  and  it  will  be  unnecessary  to 
trace  the  steps  through  which  it  may  have  been  intro- 
duced thence  into  Germany,  where  our  earliest  example 
is  not  before  1520.  Vasari  attributes  it  to  Vittore 
Pisanello,  who  died  in  145 1,  and  the  names  of 
Sperandio,  Pastorini,  Boldu,  and  many  others  of  the 
last  half  of  the  quattrocento,  are  familiar  to  those 
interested  in  the  subject.  Generally  speaking,  the 
difference  in  the  practice  between  Italy  and  Germany 
is,  that  in  the  one  case  the  medallic  art  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  great  painters  and  sculptors,  in  the  other, 
of  the  wood-modeller  for  the  goldsmith  as  a  special 
branch  of  his  profession.  Yet  in  Italy  all  great  artists 
passed  through  an  apprenticeship,  at  least,  with  the 
goldsmith.  Brunelleschi,  Donatello,  Ghiberti,  Ghir- 
landajo,  and  many  other  great  names  could  be  men- 
tioned. This,  because  the  goldsmith,  as  Mr.  Perkins 
has  so  well  put  it,  was  a  master  par  excellence  in  all 
the  arts.  He  was  an  architect  for  the  columns,  niches, 
pilasters,  pinnacles,  and  tracery  which  enriched  his 
162 


MEDALS    AND    MEDALLIONS 

productions,  a  sculptor  for  statuettes  and  bas-reliefs,  a 
painter  for  enamels,  an  engraver  for  niello.  He  had 
to  forge  and  hammer  iron  and  gold  and  silver,  to  cast 
in  bronze,  to  model  in  wax,  in  wood,  or  in  clay.  The 
Germans  preferred  casting  to  striking  for  their  coins 
and  medals,  but  it  was  not  until  the  sixteenth  century 
that  they  got  the  idea  from  Italy,  and  so  followed  it 
that  they  became,  in  this  art,  portraitists  of  consummate 
ability.  We  need  not  here  inquire  into  the  origin  and 
development  of  coinage  in  Germany,  and  the  connexion 
it  may  have  with  our  wood  medallions.  In  point  of 
date  it  has  been  said  that  the  fine  Schattthaler  of  the 
Emperor  Maximilian  heads  the  system.  In  Italy  the 
earliest  medals  were  all  cast  by  the  cire perdue  process. 
Caradosso  and  Francesco  Francia  were  the  first,  it  is 
thought,  to  strike  medals  from  engraved  dies.  If 
these  admirable  works  have  not  always  the  boldness 
and  individuality  of  those  modelled  direct,  they  are 
specimens  of  the  height  of  perfection  in  execution  to 
which  the  goldsmith's  art  could  rise.  Of  Francia's 
work  in  boxwood  the  Louvre  possesses  a  beautiful 
relief:  a  Pieta.  The  German  is  first  of  all  a  wood- 
carver,  and,  as  the  early  sixteenth-century  workshops 
abounded  in  sculptors  of  small  figures,  panels,  and  the 
like,  it  was  natural  that  they  should  imagine  the 
production  of  round,  instead  of  rectangular,  portrait 
reliefs,  and  make  them,  first,  for  their  own  sakes  and 
not  as  patterns  for  casting.  It  was  not,  perhaps,  much 
earlier  than  about  1530  that  the  latter  practice  became 
popular,  and  that  the  lithographic  or  honestone  reliefs 
were  used  in  the  same  way.  And  even  then  it  is  hard 
to  imagine  that  so  many  charming  works — for  example 
the  Pierpont  Morgan  Venus  in  honestone — would  not 
have  been  esteemed,  and  first  made,  as  cabinet-pieces. 
The  wood  medallion  continued  in  favour  until  Peter 
Vischer's  influence  introduced,  from  Italy,  more 
generally,  the  method  of  casting.     It  was  a  distinctly 

163 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

national  art  in  a  country  where  carving  in  wood  had 
acquired  such  a  hold.  Many  of  these  beautiful  sculp- 
tures are  so  delicately  and  minutely  executed  that  they 
take  an  independent  position  even  amongst  other 
wood-carving.     They  are  cameos  in  wood. 

The  two  great  cradles  of  the  rapidly-growing  gold- 
smith's industry  in  Germany,  destined  shortly  after  to 
attain  so  high  a  development  and  such  remarkable  pro- 
sperity, were  Niirnberg  and  Augsburg.  These  also,  and 
in  particular  Niirnberg,  were  the  most  fruitful  districts  in 
the  working  of  small  sculpture  in  box,  pear,  and  other 
fine-grained  woods,  and  in  the  calcareous  stone  used 
much  later  on  for  lithography,  which  we  refer  to 
generally  as  honestone.  The  preference  of  Niirnberg 
was  for  stone  :  Augsburg  for  wood.  At  the  same  time 
it  is  not  easy — it  may  be  said  to  be  almost  impossible 
— to  distinguish,  in  every  case,  the  productions  of  these 
two  great  centres.  Still,  as  a  rule,  each  of  the  great 
masters  confined  himself  to  one  of  these  materials.  Of 
the  two,  the  highest  art  remains  with  the  wood.  It 
requires  greater  artistic  qualities  in  the  right  under- 
standing of  its  varied  qualities,  a  surer  hand,  and  more 
care  in  execution.  The  more  pliable  soft  stone  is  less 
varied  in  its  qualities,  and  almost  as  amenable  as  wax 
to  minutiae,  sharpness,  and  delicacy  of  detail.  For  high 
artistic  merit  there  is  really  little  comparison  possible 
between  the  fine  bold  individuality  of  a  relief  in  wood, 
when  handled  in  the  style  of  Schwarz,  and  the  cold 
mechanical  character  and  too  fine  finish  of  even  the 
best  among  the  honestone  workers.  Doubtless  both 
have  their  charm,  and  the  methods  used  do  not 
generally  diff"er  greatly  except  in  the  case  of  such  a 
master  as  Hans  Schwarz.  It  is  necessary  also  to  bear 
in  mind  the  double  purpose  which  these  productions 
were  often  intended  to  serv^e.  As  has  been  already 
stated,  the  goldsmith  had  the  choice  of  wood,  stone,  or 
wax,  and,  in  wood,  several  kinds  besides  box  and  pear. 
164 


MEDALLIONS 

The  sculptor  of  these  miniature  portraits  was  required 
to  be  a  master  in  the  rendering  of  human  lineaments, 
and  in  the  character  and  peculiarities  of  his  subject,  no 
less  than  in  great  sculpture  and  in  painting.  So  far  as 
we  know,  there  was  no  previous  preparation  in  clay  or 
wax,  but  he  worked  direct  on  the  wood.  We  shall 
find,  even,  very  evident  points  of  distinction  between  a 
wood-carver  such  as  Haguenauer,  and  such  honestone 
workers  as  Fletner  or  Daucher.  Again,  in  making 
general  comparisons — and  we  cannot  here  go  further 
than  that — it  is  not  only  the  medallions  which  have  to 
be  considered.  But  the  honestone  was  as  a  rule,  some 
busts  apart,  confined  to  bas-reliefs,  and  these  some- 
times of  considerable  dimensions.  Our  main  interest 
for  the  present  lies  with  the  series  of  portrait  medallions 
in  wood.  Of  the  masters,  Hans  Schwarz  is  the  earliest 
of  whose  personality  we  have  any  definite  information, 
and  he  is  also  the  greatest.  To  him  we  can  assign  a 
fairly  large  number  of  examples.  Of  other  important 
medal  masters  Friedrich  Haguenauer  is  the  most 
interesting  and  prolific,  and  there  will  be  something  to 
say  also  of  Ludwig  Krug,  Hans  Kels,  Hans  Daucher, 
Peter  Fletner,  Hans  Culmbach,  and  Jakob  Fugger.  In 
these  portrait  bas-reliefs  it  is  impossible  not  to  be 
struck  by  the  general  air  of  realism,  and  by  the  con- 
scientious fidelity  to  the  individuality  of  the  subject, 
not  only  in  the  features,  but  also  with  regard  to  the 
particular  characteristics  and  carriage  of  the  person 
portrayed.  The  observation  of  nature  is  exact.  There 
is,  in  the  best  and  boldest  specimens,  a  scrupulous 
avoidance  of  flattery,  and  of  retouching  away  natural 
defects.  The  portly  burgher,  for  example,  loses  none 
of  his  corpulence:  on  the  contrary  it  is  emphasized, 
sometimes  even  to  the  extent  of  exciting  our  amusement 
or  ridicule,  and,  without  any  malice,  the  puffy  cheeks 
and  usual  characteristics  of  the  bon  vivant  are  nothing 
extenuated.     Facility  of  execution,  a  firm,  rapid,  and 

165 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

decisive  touch  are  evident :  sometimes  fatally  so,  even 
with  the  best  masters.  It  is  true  also  that  there  was 
a  tendency  towards  excessive  exactness  and  sharpness 
of  detail  which  are  not  in  accord  with  the  highest 
expression  of  art. 

For  fine  bold  workmanship,  and  in  breadth  of 
touch,  Hans  Schwarz  is  distinguished  to  a  degree 
which  places  him  in  a  category  distinct  from  that 
occupied  by  his  later  rival  Haguenauer.  We  do 
not  look  for  mechanical  precision  in  art  as  evidence  of 
perfection  of  execution.  On  the  subject  of  medallic  art 
Quatremere  de  Quincy,  in  his  Essays  on  Art,  has  some 
apposite  remarks  which  are  worth  quoting.  He  says, 
if  it  may  be  permitted  to  summarize  them  : — *  The  art 
of  the  composition  of  inddailles  consists  in  the  reduction 
to  their  lowest  terms  of  every  subject,  every  action, 
every  figure,  so  that  each  may  be  not  merely  an 
insignificant  part  of  the  whole,  but  the  whole  clearly 
indicated  by  that  which  is  only  a  part.  From  this 
arises  the  necessity  of  distinguishing  in  each  subject 
the  feeling,  which  is  the  chief  or  central  point.  In  this 
way  a  system  of  studied  abbreviation  is  accomplished, 
which  reduces  each  composition  to  its  most  simple 
expression,  so  far  as  its  moral  or  physical  signification 
is  concerned :  not  only  so,  but  which  gives  to  the 
persons  or  figures  represented  the  value  of  that  ideal 
language  of  which  they  are  the  visible  signs.'  It  is 
true  that  he  is  speaking  not  so  much  of  portrait 
medallions  as  of  those  with  historical  compositions, 
and  that  his  remarks  are  addressed  in  particular  to  the 
work  of  the  eighteenth  century  medallist,  Duvivier. 
But  the  language  is  no  less  applicable  to  our  present 
subject.  As  great  talent  is  required  in  the  life-like 
rendering  of  individual  expression  in  these  bas-reliefs 
as  in  the  art  of  the  portrait  painter.  The  sculptor 
seizes  the  point  of  view  best  suited  to  his  purpose,  and 
he  would  seem  to  be  more  successful  with  the  profile 
1 66 


MEDALS    AND    MEDALLIONS 

portraits  than  with  the  full-face,  or  even  the  three- 
quarter  face.  In  profiles  the  form  of  the  head  and 
face,  the  line  of  the  nose,  the  contours  of  the  chin,  the 
eyebrow,  and  the  eye  itself,  are  rendered  with  more 
lifelike  and  impressive  fidelity.  Illusion  is  produced 
by  the  play  of  light  and  shade  and  the  different  degrees 
of  relief.  Almost  without  exception  the  known  portrait 
medals  of  Haguenauer  are  in  profile ;  where  they  are 
full  face,  for  example  in  his  Friedrich  van  Embrich, 
his  Johann  von  Aich,  or  even  his  Mercator — of 
whom  he  made  two  others,  much  finer — they  are 
strikingly  inferior.  It  would  seem  that  the  back 
of  the  head  is  of  the  highest  importance  in  the 
expression  of  character  in  bas-reliefs.  The  full-face 
must  have  strongly  marked  points,  as — to  quote 
another  amongst  the  few  we  have  of  Haguenauer — that 
of  Jakob  von  Strassburg,  to  give  equal  facility  of 
rendering. 

Many  boxwood  medallions  are  known,  often 
not  inferior  in  merit  to  any  of  Italy  in  bronze  of 
the  same  period.  Large  numbers  are  in  public 
museums  and  private  collections,  and,  of  course,  in 
such  storehouses  of  German  art  as  the  museums  of 
Berlin,  Dresden,  Gotha,  Vienna,  or  Brunswick. 
But,  unfortunately,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  though 
we  may  be  able  to  identify  the  portraits  them- 
selves from  inscriptions  or  other  indications,  the 
sculptors'  names  are  unknown,  or,  at  the  best, 
uncertain.  The  greater  number  may  be  attributed  to 
the  Augsburg  workshops.  Italian  medals  were  much 
more  frequently  signed.  As  regards  Germany,  it  is 
not  only  the  boxwoods  which  are  unsigned.  The 
anonymity  applies  also  to  the  greater  number  of  cast  or 
die-sunk  medals  which  are  scattered  in  rich  profusion 
throughout  most  collections  of  importance.  In  point 
of  fact,  when  we  are  concerned  with  any  attempt  to 
classify,   we   are   reduced    to   the   method   adopted  by 

167 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Erman  of  assigning  examples  to  artists  using  certain 
monograms,  when,  even,  we  have  this  slight  informa- 
tion to  go  upon.  And  amongst  these  anonymous 
masters  are  to  be  found  specimens  of  no  less  high 
character  and  interest  than  the  work  with  which  a 
Schwarz  or  a  Haguenauer  may  with  more  or  less 
certainty  be  identified.  For  these  and  other  reasons 
already  given,  our  attention  must  now  be  confined  to 
a  few  of  the  most  distinguished  whose  work  is  known, 
viz.  Hans  Schwarz,  Hans  Kels,  Haguenauer,  Krug, 
Dachauer,  and,  incidentally,  Peter  Flottner,  or  Fletner. 
Fletner  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
pioneers  of  the  German  Renaissance,  but  his  wood- 
carving  is  not  of  the  class,  for  chronological  and  other 
reasons,  to  which  the  present  review  of  German  wood- 
carving  is  especially  directed.  Certain  medallions  and 
bas-reliefs  are  attributed  to  him,  in  some  cases  for  no 
better  reason  than  as,  in  the  same  way,  anything  fine 
about  which  there  is  no  authentic  information  is 
associated  with  Diirer  or  Michael  Angelo.  Fletner 
was  a  versatile  genius,  and  his  influence  on  the  art 
of  his  time  was  very  great.  In  a  general  way  he  was 
a  decorator :  designing  chimney-pieces,  ceilings  and  so 
forth,  and  doubtless  employing  many  hands.  There 
are  in  the  Louvre  a  number  of  reliefs  in  wood  with 
floral  swags,  pntti  playing,  and  the  like,  derived  from 
the  Italian  after  the  manner  which,  later,  became  such 
favourite  subjects  with  Flemish  and  German  sculptors 
in  ivory.  Born  probably  about  1480,  working  at 
Augsburg,  and  for  the  most  part  at  Niirnberg, 
he  died  in  1546.  Although  we  know  little  of 
his  life,  his  drawings  and  architectural  designs  exist 
in  considerable  numbers.  They  cover  a  most  extensive 
range,  and  include  designs  for  goldsmith's  work,  altars, 
altarpieces,  organ  fronts,  choir  stalls,  furniture,  panels, 
plaquettes,  and  reliefs  of  all  kinds  and  interior  decora- 
tion. A  large  number  were  exhibited  at  the  Burlington 
168 


FLETNER— SCHWARZ— HAGUE  NAUER 

Fine  Arts  Club  Exhibition  of  early  German  art  in  1905. 
No  doubt  he  was  in  business  relations  with  the  work- 
shops of  the  great  metal  workers  such  as  the  Vischers. 
He  belongs  essentially  to  the  later  Renaissance.  Of  his 
existing  work  there  are  the  choir  stalls  of  the  cathedral 
at  Berne,  in  which  his  own  portrait,  winged  as  a  cherub, 
though  a  bearded  one,  appears  on  a  misericord.  In  the 
Waddesdon  bequest  is  a  fine  oval  medallion,  with  the 
subject  of  Lot  and  his  daughters,  said  to  be  by  Fletner  : 
probably  a  copy  of  an  engraving.  The  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum  possesses  a  boxwood  medallion  of 
Joachim  Rehle  (Plate  xxviii.),  and  a  large  number,  in 
silver  and  other  metals,  exists,  of  which  the  honestone 
or  wood  models  can  also,  in  some  cases,  be  identified. 

Our  two  foremost  figures  in  the  art  of  medal- 
carvinc:  in  wood  are  Hans  Schwarz  and  Friedrich 
Haguenauer.  Of  both  of  these  little  has  been 
known  until  recently,  when  the  researches  of  Professor 
Georg  Habich  have  resulted  in  some  light  being 
thrown  upon  their  work,  especially  with  regard  to 
Haguenauer,  through  the  discovery  of  a  MS.  by  him, 
and  other  documents  in  the  archives  of  Augsburg.  The 
initiation  of  the  practice  of  medallions  in  wood  may 
justly  be  claimed  for  Hans  Schwarz.  Born  at  Augsburg 
about  1492,  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  wood-carver  of  the 
same  family  name,  Stephen  Schwarz,  and  worked 
subsequently  at  Niirnberg.  Artist  life  in  that  city 
seems  to  have  been  particularly  tumultuous,  for  like  his 
contemporary,  Veit  Stoss,  he  had  to  leave  on  account 
of  a  brawl,  and  we  have  no  trace  of  him  after  1527,  the 
date  of  his  last  known  medal.  This  little  we  can  gather 
from  Neudorffer,  the  indefatigable  chronicler  of  Niirn- 
berg art,  who  calls  him  the  best  conterfettcr  of  his 
time.  And  with  regard  to  his  family  we  know  also 
that  his  father,  Ulrich,  also  an  artist,  is  represented 
in  Holbein's  votive  picture  of  1508.  In  his  medal 
work,  as  in  his  figures  and  reliefs,  Hans  Schwarz  was 

169 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

consistently  Gothic.  Intimately  connected,  no  doubt, 
with  Dlirer  —  who  seems  to  have  been  associate  or 
mentor  of  every  craftsman  of  his  time — the  traditions 
of  Gothic  art  in  which  he  was  brought  up,  were  never, 
so  far  as  we  can  positively  judge,  abandoned  for 
any  flirtations  with  the  Italian  spirit  then  making  its 
insidious  way.  The  contrary  of  this  may  be  asserted, 
and  for  proof  we  might  go  to  the  few  pieces — for 
example  in  the  Louvre — which,  though  unsigned,  are 
accepted  as  by  him.  Of  his  first  known  work — a  relief 
with  the  Entombment  in  an  architectural  framing,  at 
one  time  in  the  Felix  collection  (figured  in  the  catalogue 
of  1886  No.  938) — Habich  says  that  the  influence  of 
Donatello  is  evident,  and  that  Schwarz  soon  left  his 
Gothic  sympathies  behind.  But  beyond  the  framing, 
which  is  purely  Renaissance,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  there 
is  of  Donatello  in  the  subject  itself.  What  is  remark- 
able in  his  medals  and  reliefs  is  his  absolutely  personal 
style :  strong,  dashing,  impressionistic,  and  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  somewhat  laboured  precision  and 
minute  finish  of  his  contemporary  Haguenauer,  whose 
medal  work  begins,  as  far  as  our  present  information 
goes,  almost  in  the  very  year  when  that  of  Schwarz 
leaves  off.  Schwarz  was  the  Rodin  of  his  time,  and,  as 
the  precursor  of  German  medal  work,  his  style,  owing 
little  to  German  traditions  and  sympathies,  is  still  less 
connected  with,  or  indebted  to,  Italian  modellers  and 
casters.  His  drawing  is  bold  :  a  few  lines,  a  few  firm 
strokes ;  rude,  perhaps,  and  uncompromising.  He 
was  no  flatterer,  and  in  no  way  inclined  to  spare  the 
strongly  marked  lines  of  the  face.  Whether  instinctively 
acquired,  or  by  a  course  of  training,  his  knowledge  of 
the  anatomy  of  the  head  must  have  been  great.  We 
see  this  in  his  treatment  of  the  formation  of  the  skull 
beneath  the  skin,  and  in  the  hanging  cheeks  of  the 
aged.  His  figures,  however,  are  mostly  hatted,  and 
his  style  is  certainly  more  forcible  when  they  are  not. 
170 


SCHWARZ    AND    HAGUENAUER 

Unfortunately,  the  broad  flapped  hat  of  the  period  was 
so  much  in  favour  both  for  men  and  women  that  not 
one  in  twenty  of  the  medals  of  the  time  is  without  it. 
Of  the  remainder,  most  wear  the  curious  close-fitting 
cap  with  a  flap  at  the  back,  w^hich  was  afterwards 
aftected  by  the  reformed  clergy.  The  number  of 
Schwarz's  medal  works  in  Niirnberg  is  considerable. 
He  was  the  Niirnberg  medaller  as  Haguenauer  was 
afterwards  of  Augsburg.  For  the  rest,  in  contra- 
distinction to  Haguenauer  his  full  faces  are  especially 
distinguished.  Expressed  with  a  few  touches,  they 
are  lifelike — speaking  likenesses,  indeed,  to  use  the 
familiar  expression.  One  cannot  help  remarking  the 
clever  use  of  rasp  and  point  in  the  treatment  of  the 
drapery  ;  and  the  whole  arrangement,  the  placing  of 
the  figure  in  the  circle  and  the  value  given  to  the 
headdress,  is  more  pictorial  than  the  dry  neat  finish 
and  photographic  detail  of  Haguenauer. 

We  are  again  indebted  to  the  researches  of  Dr. 
Habich  for  additions  to  the  very  little  information 
hitherto  available  concerning  the  next  of  the  most 
important  among  the  German  medal  makers.  The 
earliest  documentary  accounts  from  which  we  may 
gather  particulars  of  the  life  of  Haguenauer  are  in 
the  archives  of  the  city  of  Augsburg,  in  which  he 
first  makes  an  official  appearance  about  the  year 
1 53 1.  He  appears  to  have  been  the  son  of  a  famous 
Strassburg  sculptor,  Nikolaus  Haguenauer,  the  maker 
of  a  great  carved  altarpiece,  now  no  longer  existing, 
in  the  cathedral.  As  was  the  case  with  so  many  of  his 
contemporary  artists  who  w^orked  in  corporations,  his 
talents  w^ere  versatile,  and  he  was  at  once  painter, 
sculptor,  goldsmith,  and  stained-glass  maker.  Early 
in  his  career  Reformation  troubles  caused  him  to  leave 
Strassburg  (he  was  on  the  Catholic  side),  between  the 
years  1520- 1530,  but  we  have  not  much  certain  infor- 
mation concerning  the  countries  visited  by  him.     They 

171 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

were,  indeed,  rapidly  changing  times,  which  affected  in 
many  ways  the  sentiment  and  fortunes  of  artists.  The 
old  exclusively  religious  requirements  in  the  art  of 
Gothic  times  had,  under  the  influence  of  the  classical 
Renaissance,  turned  the  demands  upon  them  into  other 
channels,  and  with  the  Reformation  came  a  marked 
decrease  in  emotional  piety.  The  glorification  of  holy 
personages  in  heavenly  spheres  was  discouraged,  and 
gave  place  to  that  of  living  individuals.  Princes,  rich 
merchants,  town  councillors,  goldsmiths,  and  others 
who  were  in  the  foremost  ranks  of  literature  and  art, 
with  their  wives  and  families,  were  no  longer  only  to 
be  commemorated  by  their  monuments  after  death,  but 
caused  a  new  demand  for  their  portraits  in  life,  which 
had  hitherto  been  almost  unknown.  It  is  at  least 
remarkable  that  out  of  the  immense  number  of  medals 
of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century — and  not  all  of 
them  are  portraits — a  religious  subject  is  rare  indeed. 
There  exist,  happily,  a  large  number  of  Haguenauer's 
cast  medals,  and  not  a  few  fine  examples  of  his  medal- 
lions, or  patterns,  in  wood  in  various  museums,  and 
our  British  Museum  possesses  some  rare  specimens. 
The  museums  at  Berlin,  Munich,  Augsburg,  Niirnberg, 
Karlsruhe,  Donaueschingen,  Frankfurt,  Stuttgart, 
Cologne,  and  some  others  in  Germany,  are  naturally 
the  strongest.  Haguenauer's  art,  as  we  find  it  exem- 
plified in  these,  differs  considerably  from  that  of  his 
immediate  predecessor,  by  which  he  seems  to  have 
been  in  no  way  influenced.  He  was,  indeed,  as 
independent  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  as  original  in  one 
direction  as  Schwarz  was  in  another.  The  work  of 
Schwarz  is  direct,  bold,  decisive,  impressionistic,  and 
decorative.  As  an  aid  to  identification  many  will  find 
that  in  his  portraits,  whether  drawings  or  medal  work, 
there  is  a  peculiar  treatment  of  the  eye  which  is 
remarkably  characteristic  :  a  piercing,  penetrating  ex- 
pression, rather  directed  upwards.  Very  striking  also 
172 


HANS    SCHWARZ 

is  the  treatment  of  the  hair  in  his  men  models  :  a 
method  which  has  no  analogies  in  the  work  of  his  later 
rivals,  Haguenauer  or  Kels.  Or  we  may  take,  again, 
the  modelling  of  the  underlip  and  the  angle  of  the  chin. 
These  and  other  distinctive  features  are  recognizable 
at  a  glance,  though  without  numerous  illustrations  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  describe  them  in  so  many  words. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  risky,  within  our  limitations  of 
space,  to  pursue  further  such  questions  of  detail  which, 
if  but  superficially  stated,  are  liable  to  misconstruction. 
The  reader  may  be  advised,  if  he  has  not  access  to 
originals,  to  compare  in  the  numerous  plates  of  the 
articles  by  Habich  to  which  reference  has  been  made, 
such  examples  as  the  medals  of  Hans  Tummel,  of 
Ursula  Imhoff,  Anna  Pfinzing,  Margaret  Tetzel,  or 
Friedrich  Pelham — to  name  no  more  of  many  which 
might  be  cited.  Shortly,  may  we  not  say  that  a 
Pfinzing — and  there  are  several — is  recognizable,  at  a 
glance,  as  by  Schwarz?  For  his  full-face  portraits 
what  a  finely  modelled,  convincing  likeness  is  that  of 
the  young  man  in  a  broad-leafed  slouched  hat,  em- 
broidered shirt  and  furred  robe  of  which  there  is  a 
boxwood  in  the  Munich  Museum  I  Of  his  wood 
medallions  we  have,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  authenticated 
examples  in  English  museums  or  private  collections. 
At  South  Kensington  there  is  a  fine  cast  in  bronze  of 
Urban  Labenwolf  dated  1518. 

If  we  may  compare  shortly  the  genius  of  the  two 
men,  we  shall  find  that  although  the  work  of  the  one 
begins,  or  comes  into  fashion,  in  the  very  year  in 
which  we  lose  sight  of  the  other,  Haguenauer  was 
— as  has  already  been  stated — no  follower  of  or  in  any 
way  influenced  by  the  earlier  master.  He  struck  out 
an  entirely  independent  line  for  himself.  He  is  of  the 
Renaissance,  while  Schwarz  remains  Gothic.  Exact- 
ness, finished  precision,  and  dry,  mechanical  technique 
are  nowhere  strong  points  with  Schwarz.      In  his  work 

173 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

it  is  the  satisfying  results  of  the  living  image,  the 
powerful  use  of  strong  lights  and  shades,  forming  a 
general  decorative  effect,  which  strike  us.  We  hardly 
notice  the  manual  dexterity,  nor  do  we  feel  called  upon 
to  inquire  into  the  methods  which  were  used.  In  the 
other  case  we  admire  the  technical  tours  de  force,  the 
academical  correctness,  the  dexterity  of  the  turner 
added  to  the  talent  of  a  finished  draughtsman.  Not 
that  Schwarz  was  devoid  of  talent  for  figure-drawing. 
However  he  may  have  acquired  it,  more  than  one 
delightful  example  exists  in  the  collections  of  prints 
and  drawings  of  the  Berlin,  Bamberg,  and  Leipzig 
museums.  The  art  of  Haguenauer  is  less  personal,  accu- 
rate almost  to  the  extent  of  niggling,  descending  to 
particulars  of  detail,  and,  as  it  were,  sharply  focused. 
It  is  generally  of  a  lower  relief,  and  would  have 
appealed  more  to  the  sympathies  of  our  own  medal 
workers  of  the  sixties  of  last  century  than  the  broader 
style  which  the  critical  art  judgment  of  the  present  day 
would  demand.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  evident  that, 
from  the  demands  made  upon  him,  Ilaguenauer  was 
led  into  the  error  of  over-production.  What  concerns 
us  principally  is,  of  course,  his  work  in  wood,  and, 
amongst  the  comparatively  small  number  of  wood 
medallions  to  which  we  are  able  to  refer,  there  are 
some  which  may  place  him  on  an  equal  level  with 
Schwarz.  What  a  strong  portrait,  for  example,  is  that 
of  the  unknown  individual,  with  close-cropped  and 
partly-shaven  head,  and  in  buttoned  coat  with  a  hood 
to  it,  in  the  museum  at  Brunswick !  Lesser  character- 
istics by  which  we  may  be  guided  in  assigning  work  to 
Haguenauer  are  the  style  of  the  lettering,  the  small 
ornaments  used  by  him,  the  position  of  the  subject  in 
the  field,  and  the  decoration  of  the  reverse.  The  inscrip- 
tions, it  may  be  said,  were  often  added  by  gluing  letters 
to  the  model  or  impressing  them  on  the  mould  for 
casting,  sometimes  evidently  by  means  of  printer's  type. 

174 


HAGUENAUER 

Haguenauers    medal    work    was    not    exclusively 
confined    to   portraits,  and    his    reverses    were   some- 
times   classical :    for    example,    the     '  Liberalitas '    in 
the    Berlin    Coin-room,    and    the    '  Girl    extracting    a 
Thorn  from  her  Foot.'     But  this  side  of  his  art  is  not 
remarkable.     Besides  medallions,  the  Kann  collection 
possessed  a  fine  rectangular  relief  portrait  of   Bishop 
Philip  V.  Freising,  than  which  nothing  is  more  charac- 
teristic of  his  style  in  wood  ;  and,  indeed,  at  its  very 
best.      It   is   a   half-length,    almost   facing,    the   head 
turned  in   profile.     The  bishop  wears  the  Reformers' 
cap,   a  kind   of  rochet,   and  over  this  a  fur-bordered 
gown,  the  folds  of  which  fall  almost  as  in  the  draperies 
of    the    earlier    Gothic    schools.      The    clean-shaven, 
strongly-marked  face,  with  the  loose  hanging  folds  of 
cheek  and  chin,  has  nothing  of  flattery  about  it.     We 
do   not   know  whether,  in  his  later  years,   he  followed 
their   creed,    but   about    1543,  when   at   Cologne  and 
Bonn,  Haguenauer  made  a  number  of  portrait  medals 
of  prominent  reformers.     Amongst  them,  in  the  Berlin 
Coin-room,   is  the  boxwood   pattern  for  the  medal  of 
Melanchthon,  then  about  the  age  of  forty-six.    It  is  on  a 
plain  field,  without  any  rim,  rather  hard  in  treatment, 
but  the  face  full  of  character,  and  of  the  type  of  the 
Caspar  Hedio  in  the  Brunswick  Museum.    The  British 
Museum   possesses  a  cast  of  this,  and  also,  amongst 
others,    of    Mercator,    Lauchberger,    and    Thomas   v. 
Rheineck,  and  in  the  Waddesdon  bequest  are  a  bust  of 
Hans   Hanschel  dated    1544,   and  another  of  Goedart 
van  den  Wier  dated   1542,  both  attributed  to  Hague- 
nauer.    Without  a  sufficient  number  of  illustrations  it 
would  be  uninteresting  to  follow  the  series  in  detail, 
and  a  comprehensive  list  of  works,  according  to  artists, 
is  not  within  the  plan  of  this  book.    Two  more  original 
wood    models,    however,    may    be    noticed.      In    the 
Munich    Museum    are   the    two    large    medallions   of 
Sebastian  Ligsalcz  and  his  wife  Ursula.     Ursula  wears 

175 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

what  seems  to  be  a  looped  man's  hat  of  the  period,  and 
beneath  it  her  straightly-combed  hair  falls  in  a  long 
plait  down  her  back.  The  man's  headdress  is  more 
like  a  woman's  cap,  but  it  is  really  the  netted  fashion 
of  the  period,  as  an  under  headdress,  and  to  be  found 
on  other  portraits.  The  lady  is  neither  beautiful  nor 
youthful  for  the  age  of  twenty-eight  given  to  her  by 
the  inscription  on  the  edge.  The  medal  has  the  addi- 
tional interest  of  an  inscription  in  ink,  stating  that  I 
(Haguenauer)  at  the  age  of  44  '  dis  in  holz  abguntervet- 
ten  und  schneiden,'  so  that,  if  an  autograph,  we  may 
deduce  that  Haguenauer  was  born  in  1473.  All  Hague- 
nauer's  medallions  are  not  in  boxwood.  They  are  some- 
times, for  example,  of  walnut  or  pearwood  :  and  the 
very  large  one  in  the  Munich  collection  of  Cristof  von 
Nellen  is  of  maple.  This  is  a  very  fine  portrait  of  a 
great  noble  of  the  time,  distinguished  by  his  huge 
bulk  and  powerful  physique,  about  whom  there  are 
many  interesting  anecdotes.  He  is  represented  as 
extremely  portly.  The  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum 
is  not  strong  in  wood  medallions.  The  best  is  a  small 
one  of  Ulrich  Ehinger,  dated  1533,  which  might  well 
be  by  Haguenauer.  It  would  be  impossible,  within  our 
limits,  to  follow  in  detail  other  wood  sculptors  who 
produced  medal  work.  Amongst  the  best  known  is 
Hans  Kels  of  Kaufbeuren,  who  worked  in  Augsburg. 
By  him  there  is  in  the  Morgan  collection,  on  loan  at 
South  Kensington,  the  original  model  of  a  medallion 
of  Barbara  Reihing  of  Kaufbeuren.  She  wears  a 
close-fitting  dress,  with  a  chain  over  it,  and  her  hair  in 
a  net.  A  bronze  cast  of  this  is  in  the  collection  of  Mr. 
Max  Rosenheim.  Hans  Daucher,  or  Daher,  to  whom 
some  of  the  wood  medallions  may  be  attributed,  was 
one  of  Augsburg's  most  distinguished  sculptors.  But 
his  reliefs  in  honestone  are  his  chief  distinction.  This 
was  an  Augsburg  speciality,  not  being  known  in  Niirn- 
berg  before  1508.  With  regard  to  these,  and  to  the 
176 


MEDALS    AND    MEDALLIONS 

sculptor  generally,  it  must  suffice  to  refer  to  the  two 
reliefs  in  the  Morgan  collection  at  South  Kensington, 
relating  to  the  Triumph  of  Charles  v.  (1522),  and  to 
mention  that  Mr.  Peartree  [Burlington  Magazine^ 
1905)  proposes  to  name  Daucher  as  the  author  of  the 
famous  Venus  panel  in  the  same  collection,  which  bears 
Diirer's  cipher.  Mr.  Peartree  doesn't  mention  them, 
but  he  may  have  had  in  his  mind  also  Daucher's 
honestone  reliefs  in  the  Bavarian  National  Museum,  in 
which  the  nude  women,  holding  shields  with  the  arms 
of  the  Dukes  of  Brunswick,  are  certainly  in  no  small 
degree  reminiscent,  both  in  design  and  execution,  of 
the  Morgan  plaque.  Daucher  is  credited  with  having 
made  the  stalls  formerly  in  the  Fugger  chapel  in  the 
church  of  St.  Anne  at  Niirnberg,  and  a  fine  group  of 
the  '  Deposition  '  in  another  Fugger  chapel  at  Augs- 
burg. On  the  other  hand  there  is,  according  to  Mr. 
Peartree,  direct  evidence  that  he  worked  also  for  the 
Fuggers  a  *  Resurrection '  in  Schloss  Wellenburg. 
But  this  seems  to  be  a  pitifully  poor  piece  of  rococo 
character  which  would  hardly  redound  to  his  credit. 
To  such  other  medallionists,  distinguished  also  in 
other  departments  of  wood-carving,  as  Ludwig  Krug, 
Hans  Culmbach,  Hans  Reinhardt,  Valentin  Maler,  or 
Jakob  Fugger,  it  is  possible  to  devote  only  a  passing 
attention.  Ludwig  Krug  of  Niirnberg,  of  whose  short 
life  little  is  knowm,  and  whose  medal  work  must  also 
be  classed,  for  the  most  part,  as  uncertain  in  attribu- 
tion, worked  probably  between  the  years  1522- 1532. 
He  was  a  goldsmith,  and  Neudorffer  praises  his  die- 
sinking.  Two  examples  of  his  silver  medals  are  in  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.  Of  Hans  Kels  there  is 
a  group  in  boxwood  in  the  Niirnberg  Museum,  with 
country  people  dancing,  but  it  is  rather  trivial,  and 
suggestive  of  the  advancing  rococo  style.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  rich  and  elaborately  carved  draught- 
board and  draughtmen  by  him  in  the  Ambras  collec- 
M  177 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

tion,  Vienna,  is  a  very  fine  example  of  woodwork, 
generally,  of  this  class.  It  is  of  many  woods  com- 
bined :  oak,  box,  lignum  vitae,  satinwood,  and  pear. 
The  board  itself  is  a  most  elaborate  work,  with  portrait 
medallions  and  borders  of  foliage  and  fruit,  birds, 
and  animals,  and  scenes  of  the  chase.  Some  of  the 
smaller  medallions,  with  figures  and  scenes,  have 
almost  the  character  of  the  microscopic  work  to  which 
the  next  chapter  will  be  devoted.  The  draughtsmen 
are  carved  with  a  great  variety  of  scriptural  scenes  and 
with  classical  and  other  profane  subjects.  The  whole 
work  is  minutely  described  and  figured  in  photogravure 
in  the  Witnn^i  J ahr buck  der  kunsthistorischeii  Sainm- 
lungen,  iii.  53  (1885).  Hans  Dollinger  was  another 
contemporary  Augsburg  wood-carver  to  whom,  however, 
few  medallions  in  wood  can  be  assigned.  His  reputa- 
tion lies  chiefly  in  his  stone  reliefs.  The  Rothschild 
bequest  has  eight  interesting  examples  of  boxwood 
medallions,  amongst  them  one  of  John  of  Leyden, 
leader  of  the  Anabaptists,  and  another  of  Maria,  wife 
of  Maximilian  11.,  by  Antonio  Abondi  of  Milan,  who 
worked  for  that  emperor  and  for  Rudolph  11.  In  the 
same  collection  also  is  a  fine  panel  in  pearwood, 
measuring  6f  x  5|-  inches,  with  a  three-quarter  length 
figure  of  a  young  man  in  doublet,  flat  cap,  and  ex- 
travagantly slashed  and  beribboned  doublet  and  hose. 

The  question  of  Albert  Diirer's  influence  on  the 
wood-carving  of  his  time,  and  the  use  made  by  sculp- 
tors of  his  designs,  has  already  received  attention.  In 
connexion  with  medal  work  it  is  again  opened,  and 
we  have  to  consider  not  only  whether  this  great  artist 
himself  carved  in  wood,  but  also  whether  some  impor- 
tant medals  and  other  reliefs,  with  or  without  his  well- 
known  signature,  are  the  actual  work  of  his  hand.  It 
is  a  momentous  subject,  upon  which  critics  have  greatly 
exercised  themselves.  It  is  more  than  likely,  indeed 
we  may  be  certain,  that  in  accordance  with  the  general 

178 


DURER 

practice  of  art  in  his  day,  Diirer  would  have  been 
exercised  in  the  use  of  the  chisel.  He  worked  as  a 
goldsmith  in  his  father's  workshop,  and,  well  versed  in 
the  art  in  all  its  branches,  left  it  to  become  a  painter. 
But  nothing-  can  be  deduced  from  his  diary  and  corre- 
spondence and  other  writings  as  authority  on  the  matter, 
still  less  connecting  him  with  any  particular  works. 
There  is  no  existing  piece  that  we  can  say  with  certainty 
is  by  him.  Amongst  the  medals  and  other  reliefs 
which  have  especial  reference  to  our  subject  the  follow- 
ing are  the  most  important.  A  medal  with  a  head  of 
Lucretia,  bearing  the  cipher  dated  1508,  and  at  one 
time  erroneously  called  Agnes  Diirer :  a  portrait  medal 
of  his  master,  Wohlgemut,  dated  151 1,  the  style  of 
which,  it  is  held,  suggests  an  original  in  wax :  a  medal 
with  the  portrait  of  a  man,  dated  1519,  and  thought  to 
be  the  father  of  the  artist  :  and  the  famous  honestone 
panel,  with  the  full-length  figure  of  a  woman,  nude, 
with  her  back  turned,  bearing  the  cipher  and  date 
1509,  which,  having  passed  through  the  Birkenstock, 
Brentano,  Felix,  Stein,  and  Carmichael  collections,  is 
now  in  that  of  Mr.  Pierpont  Morgan,  and  lent  by  him 
to  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.  Erman,  one 
of  the  earliest  authorities  on  medallic  art,  and  many 
numismatic  critics,  have  been,  and  still  are,  of  opinion 
that  these  examples  should  be  accepted,  but  the  question 
is  so  involved  in  that  which  may  only  connect  them 
with  him  as  the  designer,  and  the  signature  added  with 
or  without  his  concurrence  or  consent,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  arrive  at  any  definite  conclusion.  It  has 
been  already  shown  how  very  much  the  wood  sculptors 
with  whom  we  have  been  occupied  availed  themselves 
of  his  designs  and  of  those  of  the  other  great  engravers 
and  etchers  :  and  certainly  his  work,  both  portraits  and 
heraldic  compositions,  was  very  much  in  use  by  con- 
temporary and  later  goldsmiths.  Interchange  between 
artists  was  of  the  commonest  occurrence.    Marc  Antonio 

179 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Raimondi  is  a  well-known  case  in  point,  and  his  etched 
pieces  which  are  absolute  copies  from  Raphael's  and 
other  great  artists'  paintings  and  sketches. 

Hans  Daucher  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most 
prominent  of  the  German  wood  workers  of  the  first  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  nothing  would  be  more 
interesting  than,  if  we  could,  to  name  him  authorita- 
tively as  the  author  also  of  the  Pierpont  Morgan  hone- 
stone  Venus.  This,  Mr.  S.  Montagu  Peartree,  in  a  long 
and  able  article  in  the  Burlington  Magazine  for  October 
1905,  has  accomplished,  to  his  own  satisfaction  at  least. 
Without  implying  that  Mr.  Peartree's  conclusions  are 
irresistible,  it  may  be  said  that  his  researches  are  of  con- 
siderable interest,  with  much  information  concerning 
Daucher  and  his  work,  to  which  our  space  will  not 
allow  us  to  allude.  Some,  perhaps,  may  think  his 
arguments  are  hardly  convincing  and  sometimes  far- 
fetched. For  example,  his  comparison  of  the  Morgan 
plaque  with  the  figures  on  the  left  hand  of  the  Limbo 
panel  by  Daucher  in  the  Fugger  chapel  in  the  church 
of  St.  Ulrich  at  Augsburg,  and  the  Eve  herself  in  the 
same  composition.  He  compares  the  features  and  the 
folds  of  the  drapery  and  finds  them  '  identical '  in  design 
and  execution.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  identity  would 
seem  scarcely  nearer  than  if  one  were  to  say  that  an 
elbow  is  more  like  another  elbow  than  a  nose.  After 
all,  however,  these  things  are  felt,  and  cannot  be  argued. 
Daucher  and  others  were  perhaps  associated  with 
Diirer  in  Venice  or,  may  be,  in  Niirnberg,  and  allowed 
by  him  to  translate  his  drawings  into  relief,  and  even 
permitted  to  add  the  cipher  as  the  mark  of  the  designer 
to  whom  the  chief  credit  was  due,  the  sculptor  effacing 
himself.  This,  indeed,  would  appear  to  have  been  the 
practice  with  the  wood  engraver  later  on :  and  in 
etching,  to  this  day,  the  important  part  played  by 
the  actual  printer  of  the  plate  is  frequently  ignored. 
Various  other  questions  relating  to  the  subject  sug- 
180 


I'LAIK  AXy/J/ 


<    I    ^J    0 

2      =      ^2 

as    =    =*    < 


^   <    i   r 

O    5    ~    c 
O    '-     .    t 


MEDALLIONS 

gest  themselves,  without  bringing  us  any  nearer  to  a 
definite  conclusion. 

There  has  been  no  attempt,  within  the  limits  of  a 
short  chapter,  to  give  here  either  a  history  of  medallions 
in  wood,  or  even  a  comprehensive  account  of  the  work 
of  Schwarz,  of  Haguenauer,  or  of  Kels.  Nor,  even  if 
space  permitted,  should  I  make  any  pretensions  to 
knowledge  as  a  specialist  on  the  subject  generally. 
For  such  a  qualification  the  study  is  necessary  not 
only  of  models  in  carved  wood,  but  of  cast  and  struck 
medals  in  various  metals  and  by  various  processes, 
especially  in  Italy,  where  the  practice  of  working  them 
in  wood  was  unusual,  if  used  at  all.  Our  national 
collections  are,  unfortunately,  not  rich  in  examples  of 
this  particularly  German  art.  But,  indeed,  they  are 
nowhere  commonly  to  be  found.  In  the  Louvre  are 
about  fourteen  wood  medallions,  formerly  in  the 
Sauvageot  collection,  which  were  described  and  figured 
so  long  ago  as  1834  by  Lenormant,  in  his  Trdsor  de 
Ntimis7}iatiqtie.  One  of  them  is,  however,  a  draughts- 
man. The  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  acquired,  in 
1867,  two  fine  examples,  one  of  which  is  ascribed  to 
Hans  Schwarz,  and  the  other  is  very  much  in  his 
manner,  and  it  has  possessed  also  for  some  time  four 
or  five  others  which  are  not  without  interest.  Amongst 
the  latter,  a  portrait  of  Wolfgang  Poemer  bears  the 
(added)  Diirer  cipher.  Quite  recently  the  museum  has 
acquired,  through  the  munificence  of  Mr.  Salting, 
eleven  medallions,  several  of  which  came  from  the 
famous  Spitzer  collection,  which  was  comparatively 
rich  in  examples  attributed  to  Haguenauer.  The 
Pierpont  Morgan  collection,  at  present  in  the  same 
museum,  has,  with  three  others,  the  Barbara  Reihin- 
gin,  by  Hans  Kels,  dated  1538,  and  the  Augustin 
Honoldt.  Several  of  the  above  are  here  illustrated 
(Plate  XXVIII.).  None  have  yet  been  ascribed,  with 
certainty,  to  a  particular  master,  and  it  would  be  out 

181 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

of  place,  in  such  a  brief  notice  as  the  present  one,  to 
do  more  than  draw  the  reader's  attention  to  them. 
Finally,  for  our  London  museums,  the  Wallace  collec- 
tion has  four  medallions,  including  one  with  the 
portrait   of  the    Infante    Ferdinand   of   Spain,   all    of 


which    have    this    monogram    [CKj    branded  on  the 

backs.  Of  course  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  to  be  that 
of  the  sculptor.  Mr.  Max  Rosenheim's  collection, 
and  his  reputation  as  an  expert  on  the  subject,  are 
well  known.  In  wood  he  has  a  fine  example  of  Kels, 
with  the  portraits  of  Matthew  and  Anna  Raiser  on  the 
obverse  and  reverse  respectively.  Two  or  three  others 
from  the  collection  of  Sir  Julius  Wernher  were  shown 
at  the  Exhibition  of  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club, 
to  the  catalogue  of  which  the  reader  is  referred. 

It  will  be  seen  that  these  specimens  of  German  art 
are  of  considerable  historical  and  artistic  interest. 
They  differ,  also,  from  medallic  art  in  metal,  in  that 
each  is  in  itself  the  original,  and  unique,  while  casts 
from  it  may  be  multiplied.  They  are  artists'  proofs ; 
sometimes,  also,  proofs  before  all  letters,  and  they  are 
of  extreme  rarity.  Few,  indeed,  are  aware  of  their 
high  market  value.  It  may  be,  therefore,  interesting 
to  note  that  the  cost  to  Mr.  Salting  of  the  little  bit  of 
boxwood,  about  the  diameter  of  a  two-shilling  piece, 
and  hardly  half  the  thickness,  which  forms  the  Lux 
Meringer  medallion  (Plate  xxviii.)  was  no  less  than 

^500- 


182 


CHAPTER    X 

MICROSCOPIC  OR  MINIATURE  WOOD   SCULPTURE 

THERE  is  a  series  of  undeniable  works  of  art  in 
wood  to  which  the  term  microscopic  sculpture 
is  applicable  in  default  of  a  better  term  under 
which  to  classify  them.  The  boxwood  carvings  de- 
scribed in  the  preceding  chapter  would  seem  to  form 
an  intermediate  class  between  these  very  minutely 
executed  works  and  those  which  range  from  statuettes 
to  life-size  and  even  colossal  dimensions.  If,  indeed, 
the  use  of  a  microscope  is  not  absolutely  necessary,  it 
is  at  least  an  aid  which  is  of  considerable  use  for  their 
appreciation,  and  they  can  well  stand  the  test.  These 
curious  wood-carvings,  on  a  minute  scale,  are  all  of  the 
same  character,  and  though  nothing  is  certain,  it  is 
difficult  not  to  imagine  that  the  known  examples — of 
which  nearly  every  collection  of  importance  contains  a 
more  or  less  elaborate  specimen — must  all  be  from  the 
same  workshop,  perhaps  even  by  the  same  hand.  The 
beautiful  examples  bequeathed  to  the  nation  by  Baron 
F.  de  Rothschild  are  so  representative  of  the  class  that 
it  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  confine  our  attention 
entirely  to  them.  More  than  one  is  unequalled  else- 
where, and  the  collection  is  easy  to  inspect  among  the 
other  beautiful  surroundings  in  the  Waddesdon  room 
of  the  museum.  Easy  to  inspect,  but  not  to  handle, 
these  precious  objects,  for  so  fragile  is  their  nature 
owing  to  the  extreme  tenuity  to  which  some  of  the 
carved  details  have  been  reduced  that  it  is  doubtful  if 

183 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

permission  will  ever  again  be  given  to  do  so  for  the 
purpose  of  photographing  them.  We  are  indebted, 
therefore,  for  our  illustrations  to  the  photographs 
previously  taken  for  the  official  publications.  Generally 
speaking,  these  minute  carvings  are  very  clever  reduc- 
tions of  monumental  Gothic  work,  or  of  the  altarpieces 
which  were  themselves  in  the  architectural  style  of  the 
period.  Even  if  original  to  some  extent  in  arrange- 
ment, they  follow,  in  common  with  work  of  greater 
proportions,  the  system,  so  usual  in  the  minor  arts, 
of  copying  from  paintings,  engravings,  and  sculpture 
generally.  Chefs-d'oeiivre  of  technical  skill  in  execution, 
they  are  in  no  way  inferior  to  the  altarpieces  which 
have  been  described  in  previous  chapters.  No  doubt 
the  fashion  was  suggested  in  the  first  place  by  some 
simple  ornamentation  of  the  ordinary  rosary  bead.  This 
became  extended,  and  the  beads  were  increased  in  size 
from  an  inch  to  three  or  more  in  diameter  to  admit 
even  of  figure  work  and  scenes  in  perspective.  These 
beads  —  paternosters,  grains-de-chapelet,  or,  as  the 
Germans  term  them,  prayer-nuts — are  no  doubt  the 
earliest  in  date.  A  further  extension  of  the  idea  are 
the  miniature  altarpieces,  tabernacles,  memento  mori, 
and  other  pious  bibelots,  of  which  there  are  charming 
examples  in  the  Waddesdon  and  Wallace  collections. 
In  course  of  time  the  simply-carved  beads  were  made 
to  open  on  a  hinge  as  a  diptych,  sometimes  even  as  a 
polyptych,  and  were  deeply  and  elaborately  carved, 
w^ithin  and  without,  with  figures  and  episodes  in  sacred 
history  in  full  relief.  Often,  again,  these  precious  and 
fragile  carvings  were  further  enclosed  in  outer  cases  of 
delicate  open  work,  and  the  two  hemispheres  divided 
by  a  thin  metal  plate  engraved  and  enamelled  :  after 
the  fashion,  in  fact,  of  a  pomander  box.  Naturally, 
also,  in  response  to  the  spirit  of  the  time,  the  idea  lent 
itself  to  all  sorts  of  quaint  conceits.  We  have  the 
favourite  memento  niori  subject  repeated  in  numerous 
184 


MICROSCOPIC    CARVINGS 

grotesque  and  terrifying  and  even  repulsive  ways. 
There  are  strings  of  grinning  skulls  and  half-decayed 
heads,  or  the  living  head  of  fashionable  beauty  in  con- 
junction with  the  representation  of  what  it  was  fated  to 
become  after  death.  There  was  a  similar  fashion,  of 
course,  in  the  mediaeval  ivories.  Or  again,  as  in  this 
collection,  a  tiny  coffin,  with  a  ridged  lid,  which  opens 
and  discloses  a  skeleton  with  its  attendant  horrors,  or 
a  representation  of  the  Last  Judgment  and  the  tortures 
of  hell.  A  natural  extension  of  the  idea  from  the 
beads,  in  diptych  or  polyptych  form,  would  have  been 
the  application  to  other  devotional  and  even  secular 
objects,  always  on  the  same  minute  scale,  and  always 
with  the  same  exhibition  of  dexterity  of  handiwork  and 
extreme  carefulness  of  execution,  with  at  the  same  time 
evidence  of  a  master  in  art  on  a  level  with  the  most 
distinguished  sculptors  of  his  time.  Doubtless  this 
mixture  of  talent  of  such  a  varied  kind  must  have  had 
a  considerable  reputation,  though  all  trace  of  the  artist, 
or  artists,  has  been  lost. 

There  is  so  much  similarity  in  the  technical  execu- 
tion of  the  fairly  numerous  examples  of  this  micro- 
scopic sculpture  which  still  exist,  that  it  would  seem 
evident  that  they  must  have  been  the  work  of  one 
particular  sculptor,  or  have  proceeded  from  one  particu- 
lar workshop.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  the  accomplish- 
ment could  have  been  a  common  one,  which  astounds 
us  by  the  apparent  impracticability  of  detaching,  with- 
out breaking,  such  details  as  the  hairlike  spears 
of  the  soldiers  in  the  crucifixion  scenes,  the  multi- 
tude of  figures  carved  in  the  round  and  standing 
detached  from  the  background  in  perspective  land- 
scapes (as  in  the  larger  retables),  and  the  undercutting 
in  almost  inaccessible  portions  of  the  subject,  always 
with  the  same  precision  and  perfection  of  finish.  Of 
course,  as  in  the  case  of  the  well-know^n  Chinese 
puzzle-balls,    the    problem    would    lose    its   charm    if 

185 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

joins  of  any  kind  were  permitted.  There  are  two 
most  important  pieces  in  the  Waddesdon  collection  : 
a  miniature  altarpiece  on  a  richly-carved  base  orna- 
mented with  figures,  and  a  very  curious  and  elaborately 
contrived  structure,  mounted  on  a  stand,  which  the 
official  catalogue  describes  as  a  '  tabernacle.'  We  need 
not  quarrel  with  this  term,  for  it  would  be  extremely 
difficult  to  find  an  alternative  one  which  should  be 
entirely  satisfactory.  As  an  example  of  this  description 
of  work,  in  which  ingenuity  and  dexterity  of  handicraft 
are  joined  with  design  from  the  hand  of  a  master,  it  is 
probably  unique.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  describe,  in  a 
few  words,  the  subjects  depicted  on  the  central  panel  and 
wings  of  the  retable,  or  the  complicated  construction 
and  variety  of  figure  work  of  the  second  piece.  The 
illustrations  here  given  must  speak  for  themselves 
(Plates  XXIX.  and  xxx.).  In  the  centre  of  the  altarpiece 
is  the  Crucifixion  with  the  three  crosses  raised  on  high, 
the  thieves  on  each  side  struggling  with  their  bonds  : 
beneath  are  a  multitude  of  tiny  figures,  the  holy  women, 
priests,  soldiers  on  foot  and  on  horseback,  and  the 
people  generally,  in  the  manner  of  the  Flemish  and 
German  primitives,  and  the  altarpieces  copied  and 
adapted  from  their  pictures.  Analogies  will,  of  course, 
present  themselves  to  those  who  are  familiar  with  these 
subjects,  but  the  question,  however  attractive,  is  not 
one  for  which  space  can  here  be  found.  With  a  magni- 
fying glass,  and  even  without  it,  one  can  distinguish 
the  expression  of  the  features  admirably  portrayed, 
the  minutiae  of  the  costumes,  the  harness  and  accoutre- 
ments of  the  horses,  the  hairlike  ropes  binding  the 
thieves,  and  the  equally  hairlike  spears  of  the  soldiers, 
completely  detached,  without  any  support  from  the 
background.  One  only  of  the  latter  shows  any  injury, 
being  slightly  bent,  after  four  hundred  years  and  more 
of  existence.  The  wings  of  the  triptych  are,  as  usual, 
in  low  relief.  Beneath,  and  enclosed  with  doors,  is  a 
1 86 


rLATE   XXIX 


MIMAIUKK    AMAKIMKCK.     FLKMISH   OR    NORTH    (W-.KMAN.     SIXIKKNIM    (hNllk\ 

HKMISII    •.\i;sEUM   (v\  M'111-.l'iiS     l.iiiiM.    IcilMsiMMH    UK  in  ■  Ks  l) 


MICROSCOPIC    CARVINGS 

second,  and  smaller,  triptych  with  scenes  of  the 
Passion  carved  on  the  inner  side  in  low  relief.  Beneath 
this  again,  on  the  semi-circular  arcade  of  steps,  is  the 
representation  of  the  Last  Supper — the  figures  of  Our 
Lord  and  the  apostles,  in  full  relief,  seated  behind 
the  table — and  on  the  base,  on  the  steps  of  the  arcade, 
and  on  pillars  are  cherub  figures  and  lions  holding 
shields  in  Renaissance  style.  The  whole  rests  on 
recumbent  lions.  There  are  traces  of  gilding,  and  the 
date  151 1  is  engraved  on  a  small  oval  panel.  The  so- 
called  tabernacle  is  remarkable,  in  the  first  place,  for 
its  complicated  construction.  The  knop,  if  it  may  be 
so  termed,  opens  and  discloses  a  kind  of  rosary  bead 
divided  into  two  parts  on  a  hinge,  one  part  having 
shutters  to  close  as  in  a  triptych.  The  interiors  of  the 
hemispheres  are  still  more  minutely  carved  than  in  the 
previous  example,  with  the  Crucifixion  and  other 
Passion  scenes.  There  is  again  the  same  dexterity 
displayed  in  the  detachment  of  the  spears  and  other 
accessories,  and  all  the  figures  are  in  full  relief.  On 
the  top  of  the  bulbous  pinnacle  which  surmounts  the 
whole  is  a  pelican  in  her  piety.  If  this  is  removed, 
the  petals  forming  the  bulb  itself  fall  down  and,  as  they 
fall,  cause  a  charming  Madonna  statuette  to  rise  out  of 
the  bulb  beneath.  Each  petal  is  itself  carved  on  the 
inner  side  with  scenes  in  the  life  of  Christ  and  of  His 
Mother.  Even  with  this,  the  ingenuity  of  the  fitting 
together  or  displacements  of  the  various  parts  is  not 
exhausted,  and  hardly  a  hair's-breadth  of  the  whole  is 
without  its  carved  subject  or  ornament. 

No  Japanese  netsuke  or  medicine-box  maker  has 
bestowed  more  elaborate  care  on  the  fitting  together, 
or  on  the  decoration  of  the  exposed  or  unexposed 
portions.  There  are  several  inscriptions  and  texts, 
badges,  and  coats-of-arms.  These,  and  the  character 
of  the  lettering,  are  of  importance  in  the  considera- 
tion of  the  question   of  the  origin   of  these  boxwood 

187 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

miniature  works.  Of  the  coats-of-arms  there  are 
two  of  Charles  the  Fifth  as  Emperor  and  King,  and 
under   the   foot    of   the    altarpiece   is   the   inscription 

4-DOMINICVS    •   ACA VALLA  •    ME   •   FECIT    •    AN    1 562.        A 

more  careful  examination  of  the  objects  themselves 
and  of  their  cases  would  be  necessary  than  it  is  pos- 
sible for  any  but  their  curators  to  make  to  warrant 
any  definite  opinions  which  might  be  deduced.  Both 
the  pieces  just  described  have  their  charming  original 
cases  of  leather  incised  with  floral  scrolls,  and  set  and 
bordered  with  gold  filigree  work.  All  this  points 
to  the  high  value  attached  to  these  objects,  and  the 
extreme  care  with  which  they  were  kept.  It  may  be 
that  the  base  of  the  altarpiece  is  of  later  date  than 
the  upper  portion,  and  that  the  case  was  made  for  it 
at  the  time  of  the  addition  or  reconstruction.  We  may 
remember  that  Charles  v.  was  born  at  Ghent  in  1500, 
was  King  of  Spain  and  Emperor  of  Germany  in 
1 5 16.  He  would  then  have  been  only  eleven  years  of 
age  at  the  time  the  dated  part  was  made.  He  retired 
into  a  monastery  in  1555,  and  died  in  1558. 

To  what  country  are  we  to  ascribe  the  origin  of  these 
curious  pieces?  The  usual  opinion,  and  the  official  one 
held  at  the  museum,  is  that  they,  and  the  other  known 
pieces  of  the  same  character,  are  Flemish.  Though  this 
is  highly  probable,  something  might  however  be  said  for 
a  North  German  origin  :  in  the  Westphalian  provinces, 
for  example,  where,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  a  flourish- 
ing school  of  retable  makers  existed,  under  strong 
Flemish  influence.  The  architectural  work,  if  it  may 
so  be  called,  has  nothing  peculiar  to  Flanders,  and  the 
branch-work  curtain,  bordering  and  hanging  from  the 
ogee-shaped  canopy  of  the  larger  altarpiece,  is  more  in 
German  than  in  Flemish  taste.  Many  Westphalian 
and  even  Lower  Rhenish  altarpieces  might  be  cited  in 
which  analogies  would  be  found.  For  example,  the 
beautiful  early  sixteenth-century  retable,  No.  1336,  in 
188 


PLA  TE  XXX 


MICROSCOPIC    CARVINGS 

the  Bavarian  National  Museum.  In  this  piece  also  the 
pinnacles  and  the  somewhat  eccentric  open-work  orna- 
ment of  the  canopies  of  the  three  divisions  (whether  or 
no  they  belong  to  the  original  structure)  are  also 
strongly  suggestive  of  the  flamboyant  open-work  of  the 
second  piece  here  illustrated.  The  British  Museum 
miniature  altarpiece  has  been  chosen  for  illustration 
instead  of  another  extremely  fine  one  in  the  Wallace 
collection,  because  it  is  perhaps  more  representative, 
of  extreme  delicacy  and  tenuity  in  the  details  and 
accessories.  But  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the 
Wallace  shrine  is  less  remarkable,  and  it  is  apparently 
from  the  same  atelier.  The  fantastic  architectural 
work  forms  a  further  argument  in  favour  of  West- 
phalian,  or,  at  least.  North  German  origin,  rather  than 
Flemish. 

There  is  another  curious  example  of  microscopic 
boxwood  carving  in  the  Waddesdon  collection.  It  is 
attached  to  a  gold  signet-ring  of  Italian  origin, 
and  according  to  the  museum  authorities  is  pro- 
bably English  work  of  so  early  a  date  as  1340.  The 
style  is,  of  course,  of  an  entirely  different  character 
from  any  of  the  other  pieces,  but  we  need  not  on 
that  account  necessarily  assume  that  it  is  much 
earlier  in  date.  Without  affirming  also  that  any  of 
these  elaborate  works,  so  German  or  Flemish  in  charac- 
ter, could  by  any  possibility  be  English,  it  may  be  that 
the  idea  of  ornamenting  rosary  beads  in  this  manner 
originated  in  our  country.  The  writer  of  a  short  paper 
in  the  Catholic  periodical  The  Month  (July  1909) 
lately  brought  under  notice  a  curious  early  sixteenth- 
century  tract  by  Clement  Armstrong,  called  '  A  treatise 
concerning  the  staple  and  commodities  of  this  Realme.' 
The  following  passage  occurs  in  it :  '  If  any  English- 
man wold  stody  to  devise  and  invent  any  new  artificial 
thynges,  Londoners,  incontynent,  is  ever  redy  to  destroy 
it.     About  a  fourteen  years  past  was  but  a  sleyt  fantasy 

189 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

devised  in  Kent  of  makyng  the  first  bedys  with  the 
pater  noster  holowe  like  muske  balls,  made  of  boxe 
which  in  a  short  time  susteynyd  a  30  or  40  men, 
that  made  theym  and  sold  them  to  Londoners  whereby 
all  parties  which  occupied  them  gate  lyvyng  oon  with 
another :  unto  a  haburdasher  that  carried  a  sample 
into  Flaunders  and  ther  causid  a  gret  abundance  of 
theym  to  be  made  by  young  prenters  used  in  all  such 
actyvite  ther  and  brought  them  into  England  to  the 
destruction  of  the  seid  artificers  here.'  The  tract 
referred  to  was  first  printed  and  edited  by  Dr. 
Pauli  in  a  contribution  to  the  Gottingen  Abhand- 
Itmgen  for  1878,  vol.  xxiii.,  entitled  '  Drei  Volkwirth- 
schaftliche  Denkschriften  aus  der  Zeit  Heinrichs 
VIII.  von  England.'  In  this  we  find  all  that  is  known 
on  the  subject.  The  letters  appear  to  have  been 
addressed  to  Crumw^ell  about  the  year  1532,  the  writer 
calling  him  '  my  maister.'  They  are  a  lengthy  and 
elaborately  worded  complaint  concerning  the  goods  and 
work  going  out  of  the  country,  of  foreigners  brought  to 
and  employed  in  England,  and  how  to  reform  the 
Realm  and  set  people  to  work.  The  expression  '  young 
prenters '  probably  means  apprentices. 

Before  leaving  this  subject  some  notice  must  be 
taken  of  two  pieces,  in  a  somewhat  similar  style  of 
minute  carving,  which  involve,  in  addition,  questions 
of  historical  interest.  They  are  the  letters  fjb  and  F 
in  boxwood  or  cedar,  in  the  museum  of  the  Louvre. 
The  M  is  carved  with  legends  of  the  life  and 
martyrdom  of  Saint  Margaret.  The  F  has  on  the 
inside,  when  opened,  religious  scenes,  such  as  the 
crucifixion,  mixed  with  others  from  the  romances  of  the 
period,  and  on  the  outer  sides  foliage  work  and  orna- 
ment of  a  Renaissance  character.  The  whole  is  sugges- 
tive of  a  Franco-Flemish  origin,  and  if  these  curious 
objects  had  any  practical  use,  this  would  probably  have 
been  a  method  of  telling  the  beads  :  for  thirty  round 
190 


MICROSCOPIC    CARVINGS 

grains,  or  beads,  surmount  the  edges  of  the  letter  M. 
This  carved  letter  seems  first  to  have  been  noticed  in 
an  account  given  in  a  communication  by  M.  Bon  to  the 
proceedings  of  the  Socidtd  des  Inscriptions  et  des  Belles- 
Lett  res  in  1753.  The  writer  considered  it  to  be  of  the 
time  of  St.  Louis,  and  further  conjectured  that  it  be- 
longed to  Margaret  of  Provence,  who  accompanied  him 
in  his  first  crusade.  The  F  is  mentioned  by  the  Abbd 
Barthelemy  in  his  letters  in  L Esprit  des  Jotirnatix, 
1779.  It  is,  of  course,  late  fifteenth  or  early  sixteenth 
century  work,  and  has  given  occasion  for  considerable 
ingenuity  in  attempting  to  identify  the  personages 
whose  initials  the  letters  represent.  But  the  question 
has  not  yet  been  solved.  The  letter  F  was  bought  by 
M.  Debruge  Dumenil  in  1837  for  120  francs.  It  after- 
wards went  into  the  Hope  collection  for  600  francs, 
and  at  the  dispersal  of  the  latter  was  acquired  by  M. 
Sauvageot  for  2500  francs.  Labarte  thought  that  it 
referred  to  Francois  i^""  and  the  M  to  his  sister  Mar- 
guerite d'Angouleme.  But  a  more  likely  theory  is 
that  the  letters  are  the  initials  of  the  names  of  Phili- 
bert  of  Savoy  and  the  Regent  Margaret,  in  whom  we 
have  already  been  much  interested.  In  an  inventory 
of  1523,  which  has  been  published  in  the  Revue  Archdo- 
logiqtie  iox  1850  there  is  mention  of  '  une  belle  lettre 
M  de  bois  bien  taillee  a  une  petite  chaine  de  bois  pen- 
dant aux  lettres  du  nom  de  Jesus.'  We  may  remark 
the  mixture  of  Italian  and  Flemish  styles  and  that  the 
subjects  in  the  medallions  of  the  M  are  still  Gothic 
though  the  ornamental  details  are  of  the  Renaissance. 


191 


CHAPTER    XI 

WOOD  SCULPTURE  IN  SPAIN— SOME  SPANISH 
RETABLES  AND  THEIR  MAKERS 

UP  to  a  period  as  recent  as  the  sixties  of  last  cen- 
tury very  little  attention  had  been  paid  to  the 
arts  of  Spain,  with  the  exception  of  the  great 
schools  of  painting.  We  knew  Velasquez,  Cano,  or 
Murillo,  but  little  else.  Of  archaeological  research  and 
books  on  art  there  was  little  or  nothing  in  Spanish,  or 
of  the  sculptural  art  of  Spain  in  other  languages,  and 
very  little  had  been  efficiently  illustrated.  Indeed,  to 
the  present  day,  the  Diccionayio  de  Artist  as  Espanoles, 
published  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  is 
almost  the  only  work  of  authentic  reference  in  the 
language  of  the  country.  But  about  i860  the  acqui- 
sitions made  in  the  country  itself  by  Sir  J.  C.  Robin- 
son, for  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  were  the 
means  of  opening  the  eyes  of  a  great  many  hitherto 
ignorant  of  the  treasures  of  Spanish  sculpture,  metal 
work  and  textiles,  and  the  interest  shown  in  them 
culminated  in  the  special  exhibition  at  that  museum  in 
1 88 1.  Previously,  Sir  Richard  Ford,  in  his  Handbook 
for  Spain,  had  been  the  only  one  amongst  us  to 
attempt  anything  like  a  systematic  account  of  the  arts 
of  the  Peninsula.  From  whatever  sources  the  styles  of 
the  great  retablos  or  altarpieces,  in  stone  or  wood,  or 
the  sillerias  with  their  elaborately  carved  stalls,  may  have 
been  borrowed  or  inspired,  the  fact  remains  that  these 
works  have,  in  common  with  the  treasures  of  wrought- 
192 


SPANISH    ART 

iron,  of  the  goldsmith's  and  jeweller's  art,  or  of 
embroideries,  a  character  of  their  own  which  the  least 
experienced  critic  recognizes  at  once  as  Spanish.  The 
neglect  and  destruction  of  works  of  art  in  Spain  that 
prevailed  about  the  period  of  the  purchases  by  our 
museums  conduced  considerably  to  the  ease  of  acquire- 
ment. It  is  said  that  woodwork,  and  even  textiles, 
were  burnt  in  quantities  for  the  sake  of  the  bullion  in 
the  gilding  which  they  contained.  The  authorities  of 
cathedrals  and  monasteries  were  ignorant  of  their  art 
interest  and  value,  and  the  opportunities  of  collectors 
for  a  rich  harvest  were  exceedingly  great.  Neverthe- 
less, so  far  as  wood  sculpture  is  concerned,  it  cannot  be 
said  that  our  museum  at  Kensington  especially  pro- 
fited, and  for  a  general  survey  of  the  art  we  shall  have 
to  go  to  other  museums  and  to  the  cathedrals  and 
monasteries  of  the  country  itself  for  what  still  remains 
of  choir-work,  of  altarpieces,  or  of  detached  figures. 

On  account  of  the  special  character  of  Spanish  art  in 
wood,  arising  from  the  national  system  of  polychrome 
which  we  call  estofado,  and  from  other  peculiar  methods 
of  enrichment,  our  observations  may  extend  somewhat 
beyond  the  period  to  which,  in  general,  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  restrict  the  scope  of  this  book.  The 
system  of  painting,  so  important  with  relation  to  wood- 
carving,  was  not,  however,  a  Spanish  invention,  nor  even 
peculiar  to  Spain.  In  this  they  were  merely,  according 
to  their  custom,  imitating  methods  employed  in  other 
countries.  In  the  earlier  times,  and  almost  to  the  end 
of  the  Gothic  period,  the  flesh  was  painted  with  a  single 
tint  and  varnished  :  later  on  the  draperies  were  decor- 
ated by  colouring  over  gold,  and  tracing  upon  this 
surface  '  estofado  '  fine  designs.  Among  the  influences 
which  have  contributed  to  form  the  art  of  the  Peninsula, 
we  need  touch  but  lightly  on  the  most  ancient ;  that  is 
to  say,  on  the  Oriental,  or  Arab.  The  effect  of  the 
Moorish  invasion,  and  the  prolonged  occupation  of  the 
N  193 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

country,  must  have  been  very  great,  and  they  have  left 
their  traces  even  in  comparatively  late  Gothic  times. 
Indeed,  the  earliest  choir  stalls — those  of  the  convent 
of  Gradafes  in  the  kingdom  of  Leon,  or  at  least  the 
remnants  of  them  which  still  exist  in  the  Archaeological 
Museum  at  Madrid — are  Arab  in  style,  though  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  Later  still,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth,  the  carver  of  the  stalls  of  the  cathedral  of 
Huesca  bore  a  Moslem  name,  Mahomet  de  Boja.  For 
the  most  frequent  examples  of  Moorish  art  we  should, 
of  course,  go  to  the  decorative  interior  wood-work,  the 
artesonado  ceilings,  the  doors  and  other  ornamental 
details  of  palaces  and  municipal  buildings,  for  example 
in  the  Alcazar  of  Seville.  Naturally  this  is  without 
figures.  Briefly,  the  influence  of  Oriental  art  in  Spain 
may  be  summed  up  under  three  systems.  The  first,  in 
which,  from  the  eighth  to  the  twelfth  century,  Byzantine 
methods  prevailed,  as  they  existed  in  the  churches  of 
the  East :  the  second,  the  highly  decorated  style  of  the 
Alhambra  and  Granada,  covering  the  period  between 
the  thirteenth  and  the  fifteenth  century :  and  the  third 
the  Mudejar,  or  mixture  of  Christian  and  Moorish, 
the  Hispano-Moresque,  due  to  Christian  work  carried 
on  by  Moorish  artists,  or  the  copying  and  adapting  by 
the  latter  of  Moorish  styles  and  designs.  During 
those  times,  and  indeed  for  long  after  the  expulsion 
of  the  Moors,  the  wood  most  generally  used  was  of  the 
pine  family:  pitch  pine,  cypress,  and,  in  particular, 
cedar.  The  vast  forests  surrounding  the  city  of 
Cuen^a  supplied  unlimited  quantities  of  the  Cuen<;a 
wood  so  frequently  mentioned  in  inventories  as  an 
accepted  term  for  pine,  or  deal  as  we  should  say.  As 
late  as  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  we  find  in 
the  contracts  for  a  retable  by  the  entallador  Diego  de 
Velasco,  and  the  iniagineros  who  assisted  him,  that  the 
figures  should  be  in  good  wood  of  Cuen^a,  and  in 
cypress.  The  Moorish  artists  kept  rigidly  to  their  own 
194 


SPANISH    ART 

style  without  attempting  to  imitate  that  of  the 
Christians  with  whom  they  worked.  The  earlier 
Gothic  work,  therefore,  is  a  combination  of  both,  the 
Moslem  confining  himself  to  arabesques,  geometrical 
curves,  tracery  in  inlaid  work,  pendentives  and  stylistic 
foliage  of  an  absolutely  Oriental  character.  This,  how- 
ever, he  could  accommodate  without  difficulty  to  the 
Gothic  style.  A  fine  example,  probably  the  finest  of 
the  period  in  existence,  is  the  painted  and  gilt  reliquary 
now  in  the  Accademia  de  la  Historia,  Madrid.  It 
is  a  triptych  with  Gothic  arches  in  relief,  dated  1390. 
The  style  persisted,  and  may  be  followed  in  several 
cabinets  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.  The 
whole  question,  however,  belongs  more  properly  to 
furniture,  and  is  beyond  our  present  purpose. 

From  the  point  of  view  with  which  we  are  particularly 
concerned,  wood  sculpture  in  Spain  begins  to  attain  a 
prominent  position  about  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  a  little  later  than  its  early  development  in 
France.  The  sluggish  Spanish  temperament  of  the  time, 
the  political  conditions  in  the  country  itself  and  foreign 
relations,  combined  to  hinder  its  rapid  progress  and  the 
formation  of  a  distinctly  national  art.  As  late  as  the 
middle  of  the  century  the  Moors  were  founding,  as  their 
last  refuge  from  the  increasing  Christian  power,  their 
kingdom  of  Granada,  nor  were  they  defeated  there  till 
a  century  later.  But  there  still  remain  examples  of 
Christian  art  of  the  thirteenth  century  of  such  interest 
as  the  almost  life-sized  statues  in  painted  wood  in  the 
Archaeological  Museum  at  Madrid.  They  are  from 
Oviedo :  a  seated  Madonna  figure  and  a  St.  John 
holding  a  book  in  the  left  hand,  the  head  resting  on 
the  right  arm.  The  French  influence  is,  of  course, 
evident.  In  the  fourteenth  century  there  was  an 
invasion  of  Italian,  French,  and  Flemish  artists,  who 
made  many  monuments  in  stone  for  the  cathedrals  of 
Barcelona,   Tarragona,   and   Leon.     The   French  were 

195 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

indeed  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole  foreign  artists,  to  whom 
is  due  the  sculpture  of  the  cathedrals  and  churches  in 
the  thirteenth  and  early  fourteenth  centuries.  Leon  is 
absolutely  French,  and  Pampeluna,  built  by  Charles  iii. 
of  Navarre,  is  not  only  French,  but  in  the  older  parts 
as  fine  as  anything  of  the  period  that  France  itself 
could  show.  Even  if  a  certain  number  of  Tuscan 
sculptors  in  marble  were  imported  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  dominant  note  throughout  the  century  is 
still  French,  and  so  continues  in  the  schools  of  Aragon 
and  Castile,  and  in  the  provinces  bordering  on  France, 
although  no  French  names  are  to  be  found  in  the 
contracts.  In  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth  century 
we  learn  from  Vasari  that  Dello  Delli,  the  miniature 
painter,  entered  into  the  service  of  Juan  ii..  King  of 
Aragon.  Delli  was  famous  for  the  decoration  of 
chests,  adorned  with  paintings  in  the  stucco  or  gesso 
style,  and  one  of  the  first  to  introduce  this  Italian 
manner  into  Spain.  He  appears  to  have  abandoned 
his  own  country  from  pique  at  some  supposed  affront, 
and  to  have  devoted  his  life  to  Spain,  where  he  died  at 
the  age  of  forty-seven.  His  influence  upon  the  poly- 
chromatic decoration  of  sculpture  must  not  be  left  out  of 
account.  Then  comes  the  direct  influence  of  Burgundy, 
of  Flanders,  and  of  Germany.  The  great  sculptors  of 
these  countries  are  called  in,  and  combine  to  establish 
their  master-works  in  the  form  of  the  retables  and 
choir- work,  so  mixed  in  character  from  the  various 
elements  from  which  it  is  derived,  and  yet,  however 
strikingly  Flemish,  Italian,  or  even  Moorish  in  detail, 
so  overwhelmingly  Spanish  as  a  completed  structure. 
Nowhere  else  are  the  proportions  of  a  retable  on  so 
huge  a  scale,  nowhere  else  are  the  materials,  whether 
of  alabaster,  of  painted  and  gilded  wood,  of  gold  and 
silver  and  precious  stones,  of  such  magnificence,  as  it 
stretches  from  side  to  side  the  whole  width  of  the 
choir,  and  from  floor  to  roof.  All,  it  may  be  said,  of 
196 


SPANISH    ART 

the  hundreds  from  amongst  which  it  will  be  possible 
to  select  but  one  or  two  of  the  most  important  to 
illustrate  sculpture  in  wood,  belong  to  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
About  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
Italians  who  had  hitherto  been  employed  were  replaced 
by  Flemish  artists.  We  find  in  various  archives,  such 
as  those  of  the  cathedral  of  Toledo,  the  names  of 
maitre  Rogel,  of  Juan,  and  Bernardino  of  Brussels,  of 
the  four  brothers  Guas,  Vas,  or  Egas,  also  of  Brussels, 
and  numerous  '  Aleman '  and  others,  which  show  that 
the  Fleming  was  called  in  to  teach  and  also  to  establish 
himself  in  the  country.  Thus,  the  dominating  elements 
in  the  formation  of  the  sculptural  art  in  wood  to  be 
applied  to  so  great  an  extent  in  the  erection  of  the 
peculiar  Spanish  altarpieces,  and  in  the  richly-carved 
ranges  of  choir  stalls,  were,  in  turn,  Burgundian  or 
French,  Flemish  or  German,  Italian  and  again  French. 
From  these  varied  sources  was  evolved  what  is  called 
the  plateresque  style :  estilo  plateresco,  a  term  applied 
because  it  has  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  elaborate 
and  delicate  ornamentation  of  silver  plate.  The  ex- 
pression is  somewhat  vague,  and  to  some  extent  mis- 
leading, for  it  by  no  means  indicates  anything  novel  or 
original,  or  any  settled  departure  which  could  properly 
be  termed  a  style,  but  simply  a  general  impression  of 
over-richness  of  decoration  :  a  varied  combination  of 
pointed  Gothic  and  Italian  Renaissance,  to  which  are 
often  added  Mudejar  forms.  \\'hen  the  whole  of 
Europe  revelled  a  centur\^  or  two  later  in  the  grotesque 
ornamentation,  which  at  its  worst  is  called  rococo  or 
baroque,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Spanish  tempera- 
mentshould  have  carried  this  to  the  most  extreme  lengths 
in  that  style  to  which  they  themselves  have  given  the 
name  oi  estilo  nionstrttoso.  It  degenerated  indeed  into 
a  riotous  e.xtravagance  which,  under  the  architect 
Churriguera,    and    connected    with    his    name   by  the 

197 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

unflattering  epithet  chiirrigiicrcsqiic,  has  not  been 
surpassed  or  equalled  elsewhere.  Unfortunately,  it  is 
to  Spain  a  subject  of  national  pride.  The  political 
conditions  prevailing  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century 
naturally  contributed  to  increase  the  relationships 
between  the  courts  of  Flanders  and  Spain,  from  the 
fact  that  Philippe  le  Beau  had  married  the  daughter 
of  the  Spanish  monarch,  and  early  in  the  century 
names  of  artists  suggestive  of  German  origin  also 
appear  in  municipal  and  cathedral  archives.  We  have, 
for  example,  a  Juan  de  Aleman,  and  the  mixture 
or  adaptation  to  Spanish  forms  of  foreign  names  is 
perhaps  in  many  cases  almost  our  sole  resource  in 
drawing  conclusions,  so  scanty  are  the  materials  for 
any  definite  history.  A  striking  example  of  this  is  the 
case  of  the  foremost  name  on  our  roll  of  sculptors,  that 
of  Philippe  Vigarny,  or  Felipe  de  Borgona,  the  story 
of  whose  origin  and  life  is  so  uncertain.  The  Flemish 
influence  and  workmanship  on  numberless  retables  and 
stall  work  of  choirs  is  marked.  We  find  it  in  the 
great  retable  of  Burgos,  where,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
splendid  range  of  choir  work  of  the  cathedral  is  no  less 
distinctively  Italian  of  the  Renaissance.  These  Flemish 
and  German  influences  continued  until  early  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  when  Spain,  with  the  rest  of  Europe, 
succumbed  completely  to  the  all-conquering  influence 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  The  infiltration  of  Renais- 
sance principles  and  methods  was  not,  however,  of 
sudden  application.  As  in  other  countries,  it  made  its 
way  first  of  all  tentatively  and  with  hesitation,  as  it 
were :  certain  details  were  applied  to  the  still  dominant 
Gothic  style  before  being  adopted  exclusively.  Besides 
the  stream  of  immigrant  foreign  artists,  the  Spaniards 
themselves  went  to  Italy  to  place  themselves  under  the 
great  masters  of  Rome  and  Florence,  and  the  Spanish 
sovereigns  brought  to  their  courts  and  encouraged  in 
every  way  the  settlement  in  the  country  of  the  best 
198 


SPANISH    ART 

available  talent.  An  example  of  the  transition  or 
mixed  style  is  such  a  work  as  the  two  large  doors 
which  were  at  one  time  in  the  Spitzer  collection. 
Although  so  late  as  1541,  they  are  evidence  of  the  slow 
abandonment  of,  and  still  lingering  attachment  to,  the 
Gothic  style,  and,  indeed,  they  show  distinctly  an 
unsettled  purpose  in  the  mind  of  the  artist,  uncertain 
on  which  side  to  cast  the  balance  of  his  affections,  and 
therefore,  except  in  the  execution,  which  is  admirable, 
they  cannot  be  said  to  be  entirely  successful.  Of  a 
fine,  close-grained,  and  polished  walnut,  they  are  an 
illogical  mixture  of  Gothic  motives  and  panels  of  the 
linen  pattern  with  ill-adapted  classical  Renaissance 
types.  About  these  times  we  have  more  definite 
information  than  we  have  concerning  Spanish  art  of 
the  early  mediaeval  period,  where  we  are  left  to  conjec- 
ture and  to  scanty  documentary  information.  It  must 
be  allowed  that  however  great  may  have  been  the 
influence  of  France  and  Flanders  in  the  last  days  of 
pure  Gothic,  the  imported  architects  and  sculptors  were, 
to  a  not  inconsiderable  extent,  limited  to  designing  and 
superintendence,  and  were  ably  seconded  by  the  colla- 
boration and  admirable  execution  of  the  native  artists. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  amount  of  influence 
applied,  especially  that  resulting  from  the  Italian 
training  of  Berruguete,  it  will  be  found  in  retablos  and 
sillerias,  as  well  as  in  single  figures,  to  be  tempered  by 
the  national  characteristics  of  Spanish  feeling.  If, 
indeed,  the  stalls  of  Leon,  for  example,  may  be  borrowed 
or  imitated  from  Germany  and  Flanders,  or  those  of 
Burgos  from  such  work  as  the  choir  of  Perugia,  they, 
or  at  least  innumerable  other  adaptations,  are  so  over- 
laid with  unmistakable  Spanish  feeling,  so  characterized 
by  a  profusion  of  ornament  to  the  extent  of  congestion, 
by  a  lack  of  restraint  in  the  use  of  colour  and  gilding, 
and  by  the  love  of  imitative  realism  which  besets 
Spanish    art    in   general,   that,  while    flattered  by  the 

199 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

compliment,  the  Flemish  or  Italian  artist  would  hardly 
be  contented  to  acknowledge  them. 

It  is  then  a  heterogeneous  mixture  which  we  must 
expect  to  find  in  the  retables  and  choir  work  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  In  the  fifteenth  it 
would  seem  to  be  the  Flemish  accent  which  is  pre- 
dominant :  yet  not  exclusively  so,  but  rather,  in  general, 
of  Northern  Europe,  for  both  Germany  and  France 
have  largely  to  do  with  it ;  and  in  the  sixteenth  it 
becomes  a  medley  of  Italian  styles,  introduced  by 
French  artists  who  have  already  gone  through  the 
process  of  adapting  them  to  their  own  national  system  ; 
by  Flemish  sculptors  domiciled  in  the  country,  and 
become  naturalized,  and  by  Spaniards  themselves,  who, 
without  abandoning  entirely  the  national  style,  so 
surcharge  it  with  the  new  Italian  methods  that  it  is 
almost  transformed.  In  point  of  fact,  whether  the 
designs  and  execution  were  entirely  due  to  the  foreigner 
or  divided  between  him  and  the  native  artist,  bred  in 
foreign  schools,  the  Spaniard  called  the  tune,  as  he 
was  entitled  to  do.  The  plan  of  the  present  work  does 
not  permit  of  a  systematic  and  inclusive  description  of 
the  many  extraordinary'  retablos  in  the  Peninsula, 
althouQ-h  a  considerable  number  are  in  carved  and 
painted  wood — in  pine,  limewood,  cedar,  or  larch,  for 
the  most  part — wood  being  more  abundant  and  more 
easily  worked  than  stone  or  alabaster.  The  general 
remarks  in  a  previous  chapter  on  the  origin  and 
development  of  retables  and  altarpieces  need  not  be 
repeated.  It  is  true,  perhaps,  that  although  the  earlier 
forms  of  moderate  dimensions  became  extended  into 
reredoses  as  they  are  now,  unfortunately,  generally 
called,  of  considerable  dimensions,  nowhere  more  than 
in  Spain,  at  the  period  with  which  we  are  mainly  con- 
cerned, did  they  attain  such  vast  proportions  together 
with  such  exaggerated  profuseness  of  imagery  and 
decoration.     Whether  of  stone  or  marble  or  alabaster, 

200 


SPANISH    ART 

of  silver  or  other  metal  as  some  are,  or  of  wood  as  the 
most  usual  material,  in  every  case  they  employed  a 
multitude  of  artists  of  nearly  every  profession.  Archi- 
tects and  sculptors,  goldsmiths  and  silversmiths, 
painters,  enamellers,  imagineros,  entalladores,  estofa- 
dores,  and  the  innumerable  other  specialists  into  which 
the  profession  of  sculpture-painting  was  divided, 
plaster  casters  and  stucco  workers  were  required,  and 
even  the  stuff-maker  was  called  in  to  add  to  the 
imitative  realism  in  which  the  Spanish  artist  delighted. 
Amongst  the  host  of  names  of  artists,  native  and 
foreign,  which  may  be  gathered  from  the  pages  of  Cean 
Bermudez,  it  must  suffice  to  confine  ourselves  to 
Vigarny,  Berruguete,  Damian  Forment,  Pedro  da  Mena, 
and  Martinez  Montanez,  with  some  incidental  references 
to  the  most  distinguished  of  their  co-workers  :  leaving 
also  the  few  remarks  which  it  is  necessary  to  make 
upon  Spanish  choir  stall  work  to  the  chapter  devoted 
to  that  subject.  The  great  epoch  of  sculpture  in  Spain, 
identified,  perhaps,  more  particularly  with  sculpture  in 
wood  than  with  any  other  branch  of  the  art,  is  of  the 
time  of  Felipe  di  Borgona  and  of  Alonso  Berruguete, 
covering  in  general  terms  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

Damian  Forment  was  born  at  Valencia  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  probably  nearly 
about  the  same  time  as  Berruguete,  than  whom  he 
died  somewhat  earlier,  the  date  of  Forment's  death 
being  1533.  Martinez  Montanez  is  without  the  limits 
to  which  it  has  been  found  advisable  to  restrict  in 
general  the  scope  of  this  book,  but  as  it  is  to  him  that 
is  due  a  revival  of  mediaeval  methods  of  painted 
sculpture  in  a  peculiarly  Spanish  style,  a  brief  reference 
to  his  work  will  not  be  entirely  out  of  place.  Philippe 
Vigarny,  or,  as  the  Spaniards  call  him,  Felipe  de 
Borgona,  is  the  most  prominent  amongst  all  the 
sculptors  who  contributed  to  form  the  Spanish  Renais- 

201 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

sance.  Of  his  early  history  little  is  known,  but  it  is 
generally  agreed  that  he  was  a  Burgundian,  a  native  of 
Langres,  where  he  was  born  some  time  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century.  We  have  our  first 
authentic  information  concerning  his  work  in  an 
existing  document  dated  1505,  in  the  archives  of 
Burgos,  in  which  he  describes  himself  as  tmaginario, 
residing  at  Burgos,  and  contracts  for  the  sum  of  130,000 
maravedis  to  make  with  his  own  hands  the  figures  for 
the  choir  of  Palencia  in  fine,  smooth,  unpainted  walnut. 
It  would  be  out  of  the  question,  without  numerous 
illustrations,  and  within  the  limits  to  which  it  is 
necessary  to  confine  this  chapter,  to  review  in  any 
systematic  manner  the  considerable  quantity  of  wood 
sculpture  in  the  form  of  retablos,  stall  work,  and  single 
figures  attributed  to  Vigarny.  His  earlier  style 
suggests  a  Franco-Flemish  influence,  yet  neither  he 
nor  Berruguete  were  educated  in  Gothic  schools.  They 
were  the  pioneers  of  the  feeling  and  methods  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  forcing  it  on  their  countrymen  in 
the  face  of  considerable  opposition.  The  national 
temperament  was  far  more  inclined  to  the  religious 
feeling,  and  the  artless  expression  of  devotion  fostered 
by  the  pictorial  methods  of  Gothic  art,  than  to 
classical  forms  and  the  glorification  of  human  beauty 
for  its  own  sake.  It  needed  a  master  mind  to  impose 
upon  it  the  elegant  formulae  which  revived  the  ancient 
mythology  in  the  guise  of  the  most  holy  personages, 
and  of  canonized  saints.  Yet,  as  in  default  of  positive 
evidence  we  have  to  draw  our  conclusions  from  the 
large  quantity  of  work  attributed  to  Vigarny,  his 
sympathies  would  appear  to  have  been  divided,  and  it 
is  sometimes  difficult  to  distinguish  his  Gothic  from 
his  Italian  tendencies.  Both  he  and  Berruguete  were 
trained  in  Italy,  but  while  our  information  of  Vigarny's 
early  years  and  work  is  insufficient,  Berruguete  would 
seem  to  have  been  a  more  consistent  and  still  more 
202 


VIGARNY    AND    BERRUGUETE 

ardent  promoter  of  the  Italian  style.  French  and 
Flemish  influence  in  their  early  days  must  have  been 
very  strong,  for  it  continued  throughout  the  sixteenth 
century.  Juan  de  Arphe,  the  goldsmith,  severely  re- 
primanded his  fellow-workers  who  never  ceased  copying 
from  French  and  Flemish  pictures  and  engravings. 
There  was  also  a  sculptor  of  a  similar  name  to  Vigarny 
— Juan  Borgona,  also  of  Langres,  and  possibly  a 
brother  of  Felipe,  who  worked  at  Burgos  between 
1 522- 1 540,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  work  attributed 
to  Philippe  may,  in  reality,  have  been  the  outcome  of 
various  hands  during  a  number  of  years.  There  has 
always  been  a  curious  tendency  in  every  country's  art  to 
give  to  the  most  popularly  known  master  any  work 
of  superior  quality  of  whose  origin  there  is  no  direct 
evidence.  We  have  seen  this  already  in  the  cases  of 
Diirer,  Riemenschneider,  Delia  Querela,  and  others. 

Equally  with  Vigarny  we  have  little  record  of  the 
actual  training  and  foreign  w^anderings  of  Alonso 
Berruguete,  who,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  is  given  the 
foremost  place  amongst  all  Spanish  sculptors.  He  was 
certainly  acquainted  with  Michael  Angelo,  and  adopted 
with  enthusiasm  the  arts  of  the  Renaissance  which  he 
studied  in  Italy  at  the  period  of  its  highest  development 
there.  And  we  may  take  it  that  he  was  the  most 
influential  in  introducing  the  new  system  into  his  own 
country.  If,  however,  his  style  was  derived  from  Italy, 
he  was  not  contented  to  follow  it  blindly  in  the  spirit 
of  a  mere  copyist.  Compared  with  Vigarny,  and  better 
acquainted  with  Italian,  Berruguete  showed  in  his 
work  far  more  individuality  and  contributed  more  to 
the  formation  of  the  national  style  which,  however 
much  indebted  to  Italy,  is  still  distinctly  Spanish. 
The  two  men  looked  at  the  sources  of  their  inspiration 
from  different  points  of  view^  or  rather  with  eyes  which 
had  been  differently  trained.  Vigarny  was  of  an  older 
generation,  wedded  to  the  Gothic  ideas  which  in  his 

20-:^ 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

early  years  in  Spain  he  had  found  deeply  rooted,  and 
still  allied  to  the  Mauresque.  Berruguete,  though  the 
son  of  a  Gothic  sculptor  of  considerable  merit,  found 
the  ground  already  prepared  and  ready  to  receive  the 
new  impressions.  Besides  this  he  was  in  constant 
communication  with  Italy,  had  frequently  travelled 
there  and  resided  at  Florence  and  Rome,  was  intimately 
ac(|uainted  with  the  greatest  Italian  artists,  was  em- 
ployed by  Michael  Angelo  and,  indeed,  had  almost 
become  an  Italian  himself.  That  he  was  a  follower  of 
Jacopo  della  Quercia  is  evident  in  the  fragments  now 
preserved  in  the  museum  of  Valladolid  of  the  best  of 
his  retables  —  that  of  San  Benito  Real.  Of  the  two 
great  Spanish  sculptors,  therefore,  the  one,  though 
Spanish  by  birth,  was  Italian,  and  of  the  Renaissance 
by  education  and  temperament,  the  other  French  and 
Gothic.  Yet  on  these  two  stocks,  with  the  peculiarly 
national  system  of  the  use  of  colour,  was  engrafted  the 
system  of  sculpture  which  is  nowhere  more  unmistak- 
ably Spanish  than  in  the  case  of  the  retables  and  single 
figures  in  wood  with  which  we  are  now  concerned.  Of 
that  system,  which  later  on  became  still  more  distinctly 
national,  Berruguete  was  the  principal  creator.  But 
however  influenced  by  his  association  with  the  greatest 
Italian  artists  of  the  best  period  of  the  Renaissance, 
his  style  lacks  refinement  and  elegance.  It  is  Italian, 
Spanishified.  We  have  great  work  from  his  hand  in 
marble,  stone,  and  wood  :  statues  and  statuettes,  choir 
and  stall  work  in  collaboration  with  Vigarny  as  at 
Toledo,  or  at  Salamanca  and  Granada.  We  have  even 
Gothic  work.  Yet  with  all  this,  both  in  sculpture  and 
in  painting,  he  degenerated  into  the  most  regrettable 
mannerisms,  for  which  the  tendencies  towards  or 
demand  for  rococo  tastes  which  were  rapidly  imposing 
themselves  were  no  doubt  responsible. 

The  names  of  Vigarny  and  of  Berruguete  are  the 
most    popular    ones    in    ever)^    mouth    when    there    is 
204 


DAMIAN    FORMENT 

question  of  Spanish  sculpture  of  the  Renaissance.  But 
of  a  purer  and  more  elevated — at  least  of  a  more 
religious— style  there  was  one  who  was  a  greater  artist 
than  either,  of  the  time  when  Gothic  art  still  held  sway, 
even  if  its  supremacy  was  already  threatened.  We 
hear  little  of  Damian  Formente  or  Forment,  and  details 
of  his  life  are  again  provokingly  absent.  An  architect 
and  sculptor,  he  was  born  probably  about  1470,  and,  it 
would  appear,  studied  in  Rome  and  Florence  (not, 
however,  under  Donatello,  though  he  was  greatly 
influenced  by  the  work  of  the  Florentine  master), 
whence  he  must  have  returned  to  Spain  at  an  early  age, 
for  in  1 50 1  he  was  at  work  on  a  re  table  in  wood  for 
the  Gothic  church  of  Gandia  in  Valencia,  his  native 
province :  and,  but  a  few  years  later,  on  his  most 
famous  production,  the  alabaster  retable  of  the  church 
of  Our  Lady  of  the  Pillar  at  Saragossa.  His  studies  in 
Italy  certainly  had  not  the  effect  of  inclining  him  to  Re- 
naissance principles,  against  which  he  fought  through- 
out his  life  with  the  greatest  obstinacy.  The  retable  of 
the  Capilla  del  Pilar,  and  the  still  liner  one  in  a  similar 
style,  in  wood,  of  the  church  of  San  Pablo,  also  at 
Saragossa,  are  unsurpassed  amongst  the  Spanish  late 
Gothic  work  of  this  description  of  the  time.  Unin- 
fluenced by  Berruguete,  and  refusing  to  be  enticed  by, 
even  though  he  studied  Italian  ideas,  Forment  through- 
out his  life  was  in  the  main  faithful  to  Gothic  sentiment. 
The  retable  of  the  Capilla  del  Pilar  is  in  alabaster — 
now  denuded  of  colour — a  material  which  from  its 
nature  is  amenable  to  almost  identical  treatment  with 
woods  of  a  hard  kind.  The  themes  depicted  are  scenes 
in  the  life  of  the  Mother  of  Christ,  the  whole  composi- 
tion in  arrangement  and  treatment  of  the  panels,  in  the 
ornamental  and  architectural  details,  and  in  the  groups 
and  single  figures,  being  certainly  more  suggestive  of 
Flemish  than  of  Italian  teaching.  But  to  whatever 
sources  he  may  have  gone,  the  work  of  Forment  shows 

205 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

no  slavish  spirit  of  imitation,  and  it  is  surprising  that 
his  genius  and  individuality  should  not  have  been 
placed  on  a  higher  level  than  that  accorded  to  his  more 
celebrated  contemporaries,  Berruguete  and  Vigarny. 
The  retablo  of  San  Pablo,  of  wood,  painted  and  gilt, 
and  completed  in  151 7,  is  again  quite  Gothic.  In 
general  character  it  is  almost  identical  with  the  some- 
what earlier  retable  of  the  Pilar.  Yet  in  the  details 
there  are  certain  differences,  and  while  the  spirit  is  still 
Gothic,  it  would  be  idle  to  assert  that  this  is  true 
without  reservation.  Indeed  it  is  evident  that  the 
sculptor  has  gone  to  various  sources.  Notwithstand- 
ing this,  the  national  type  strongly  predominates. 
The  Crucifixion  group  in  the  upper  central  panel,  the 
figure  of  the  Apostle  beneath,  the  eight  groups  of 
episodes  of  the  Passion,  the  four  scenes  in  the  life  of  St. 
Paul,  crowded  with  figures,  the  canopies  of  complicated 
pinnacle  work,  the  innumerable  details,  with  hardly  a 
square  inch  of  the  composition  undecorated,  and  the 
elaborate  arabesque  foliage  work  of  the  borders,  identical 
with  those  of  the  alabaster  retable,  leave  an  impression 
which  is  almost  bewildering  when  we  seek  to  charac- 
terize the  style.  It  is  Gothic,  it  is  plateresque,  it 
betrays  a  Flemish  love  of  the  dramatic  and  picturesque, 
it  is  markedly  oriental,  it  certainly  cannot  be  quoted 
as  an  example  of  a  dislike  for  Italian  teaching  and 
models,  or  a  systematic  avoidance  of  their  use  ;  it  is 
Spanish,  yet  it  is  not  the  art  of  Berruguete.  It  is,  in  fine, 
Damian  Forment,  and  in  execution  it  is  a  chef-d'oeuvre. 
Notwithstanding  the  terrible  destructions  and  dese- 
crations which  the  perverted  ideas  of  Churriguera 
caused  him  to  work  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  on  decorative  art  of  all  kinds,  both  Gothic 
and  of  the  Renaissance,  there  still  exists  throughout 
Spain  a  very  large  number  of  magnificent  retablos.  In 
the  most  famous  cathedrals  also,  the  silleria,  by  which 
term  is  meant  the  ranges  of  stalls  with  their  canopies, 
206 


SPANISH    RETABLOS 

thrones,  and  other  adjuncts,  are  additional  monuments 
of  wood-carving  carried  ahnost  to  extravagance  in  their 
bewildering  profusion  of  details.  Although  in  origin 
the  retable  was  a  simple  background  to  an  altar,  and 
in  the  earliest  Spanish  examples  a  light  open-worked 
construction,  the  tendency,  even  so  early  as  the  second 
half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  was  towards  the  gigantic 
and  complicated  edifices  of  which  we  may  consider  that 
of  Seville,  completed  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  type  and  culminating  point.  From  amongst 
these,  none  of  which  are  earlier  than  the  fifteenth 
century,  a  choice  must  be  made  which  may  fairly  be 
considered  illustrative,  if  inadequately,  of  the  greater 
number.  For  this  purpose  we  may  take  as  an  example 
of  an  extremely  mixed  style,  yet  one  which,  as  a  whole, 
remains  Spanish  and  nothing  else,  the  celebrated  retablo 
of  Seville.  It  has  already  been  sufficiently  suggested, 
and  need  hardly  be  further  insisted  upon,  that  in  this 
altar  work,  as  well  as  in  the  silleria,  we  are  to  find  an 
art  which,  although  so  distinctive  in  character  as  to  be 
recognized  as  Spanish  by  the  least  versed  in  styles,  is 
yet  hardly  in  any  case  of  marked  originality,  but  built 
up  and  adapted  from  various  sources  of  even  widely 
remote  periods.  The  dominating  elements  which  com- 
bined to  form  what  we  call  the  plateresque  style  of  the 
Spanish  Renaissance  were,  as  has  been  stated,  French, 
Flemish,  or  German  and  Italian.  To  these  must  be 
added  the  reminiscences  of  Oriental  influences  to  which 
allusion  has  already  been  made.  Such  a  distinct 
feature  as  the  Spanish  methods  of  polychrome  or 
estofado  will  not  of  course  be  overlooked. 

The  retablo  of  the  high  altar  of  the  cathedral  at 
Seville,  as  it  exists  at  present,  is  in  style — if  we 
should  accept  the  decision  of  Cean  Bermudez  in  his 
Descripcidn  de  la  Catedral  de  Sevilla — Gothic.  Yet  it 
is  a  mixture  of  the  most  diverse  elements,  the  pro- 
duct of  many  minds  and  the  work  of  many  hands — 

207 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

from  the  time  when  it  was  designed    and    begun    by 
Dancart   in    1492,  and   under  the  hands  of  numerous 
other  entail  adores,  i>nagineros,  and  esfofadores,  whose 
names  and   the  particulars  of  their  collaboration    are 
extant — until  its  completion  nearly  a  century  later  in 
1564.     Constructed  of  larchwood,  the  screen,  with  its 
elaborate  ornamentation  and  innumerable  groups  and 
single  figures,  extends  the  whole  width  of  the  choir,  and 
in  height  to  the  vaulting  of  the  roof.     Ten  groups  of 
columns    divide    the    composition    into    nine    spaces, 
crossed    by  horizontal    bands    of  complicated  carving 
forming    a    series    of   36    inches    in    four    rows,    the 
borders    carved    with    an    elaborate    theme   of   foliage 
arabesques  and  bulbous  oriental  domelike  ornaments, 
each  niche  or  panel  containing  a  scene  in  the  life  of 
Our  Lord,  and  of  His  prototypes  in  the  Old  Testament, 
starting  from  the  story  of  the  Fall.     There  is  no  mis- 
taking the   German    character   of  these   scenes :    they 
are  of  the  North  German  schools,  and  despite  the  names 
recorded  by  Bermudez  of  some  of  the  earlier  ijuagineros 
and  of  painters  and  gilders  such  as  Alejo  Fernandez  and 
Andrez  de  Covarrubias,  one  can  scarcely  help  wondering 
whether  they  and  some  of  the  single  figures  are  not  of 
German  origin.     The  whole  structure  is  dominated  by 
a  Calvary  of  colossal  style.     That  is  a  brief,   prosaic 
description  of  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  Spanish 
retablos  in  wood.     To  convey  a  general  idea  of  these 
astonishing  constructions  it  would  be  difficult  to  sur- 
pass  the  style  of  the  great  French  descriptive  writer 
Theophile    Gautier.      Whatever    may  be   thought   of 
his   talent   as   a   word-painter,    it   is   certain    that  the 
impression    which    it   leaves   is    a   very   truthful   one. 
Those  who  have  read  his  Moscow  and  have  seen  the 
building  itself  will  have  recognized  the  actuality  and 
force    of    his    description    of    the    church    of    Vassili 
Blagennoi.     Equally  telling  are  some  passages  which 
I  may  venture  to  take  from  his   Voyage  en  Espagne. 
208 


pr.  I  rr.  xxxi 


RI/l'Alil.h    (»r     IHK    (  A  I  llhDK.M.    Ml     MAIl.l.l.     (  ,  l;'.'-|.iti9) 
i'A<;e  209 


THE  RETABLO  OF  SEVILLE  CATHEDRAL 

Inadequate  as  any  translation  must  be,  I  shall  give 
them  in  English  freely  rendered  and  somewhat 
abbreviated.  Speaking  of  the  cathedral  and  of  the 
retablo  of  Seville  he  says:  'The  cathedral  chapter 
which  ordered  its  construction  summarizes  its  scheme 
in  the  following  phrase  :  "  Let  us  raise  a  monument 
which  shall  make  posterity  regard  us  as  insane/'  The 
maddest,  the  most  monstrous  of  Hindo  pagodas  cannot 
approach  in  extravagance  the  cathedral  of  Seville.  .  .  . 
The  retablo,  or  high  altar,  with  its  different  scenes,  its 
architectural  structures  superposed  one  on  another,  its 
rows  of  statuettes  stage  upon  stage  is,  in  itself  alone, 
an  immense  edifice  reaching  up  to  the  vaulted  roof. 
The  pascal  candle  is  as  big  as  the  mast  of  a  ship,  and 
weighs  two  thousand  pounds.  Everything  is  in  the 
same  grandiose  proportions.  The  choir,  Gothic  in 
style,  is  enlivened  by  turrets,  by  spires,  by  open-worked 
niches,  by  statuettes,  by  foliage  work :  it  is  a  bewilder- 
ing work  which  confounds  our  imagination,  impos- 
sible to  understand  in  these  our  days  ...  a  prodigy 
of  talent,  of  patience,  and  of  genius.'  And  again  :  *  The 
endeavour  to  describe,  one  after  another,  the  riches  of 
the  cathedral  would  be  madness :  a  whole  year  would 
be  required  to  visit  it  in  detail,  and  then  one  would  not 
have  seen  everything.  We  feel  crushed  under  the 
weight  of  so  much  magnificence,  and  know  not  where 
to  go  next.  The  wish  to  see  everything,  and  the  im- 
possibility of  accomplishing  one's  desire,  induces  a 
kind  of  feverish  giddiness.  Every  style  of  architec- 
ture is  represented — Gothic  severity,  the  Renaissance, 
the  plateresco,  distinguished  by  a  mad  profusion  of 
ornamentation  and  by  arabesques  of  inconceivable  com- 
plexity, rococo,  Greek,  and  Roman.  It  is  the  sublime 
uplifting  of  the  soul  towards  the  Infinite  expressed  in 
terms  of  pinnacles,  spires,  bulbous  domes,  and  ogival 
arches  raising  to  the  skies  their  arms  of  stone,  joining 
in  prayer  their  hands  of  gigantic  proportions  over  the 
o  209 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

heads  of  the  people  prostrate  in  supplication.'  Or 
again,  in  the  description  of  the  retablo  of  the  cathedral 
at  Toledo:  'The  high  altar,  or  retablo,  might  itself, 
alone,  pass  for  a  church.  It  is  an  enormous  assem- 
blage of  slender  columns,  of  niches,  of  statues,  of  foliage 
work  and  arabesques,  of  which  the  most  minute  descrip- 
tion could  give  but  a  feeble  idea.  The  whole  of  this 
architecture,  rising  to  the  very  roof  and  surrounding 
the  sanctuary,  is  painted  and  gilded  in  the  richest 
manner  imaginable.  The  dull,  warm  tone  of  the  ancient 
gilding  is  admirably  set  off  by  the  shimmering  streaks 
of  sunshine  caught  on  their  passage  by  the  mouldings 
and  reliefs  of  the  ornaments,  producing  a  marvellous 
effect  of  the  most  opulent  picturesqueness.'  It  is  indeed 
piling  Pelion  on  Ossa,  and  the  gilding  of  gold.  In  the 
midst  of  this  excessive  richness  and  profusion  of 
details  any  ordinary  powers  of  description  seem  totally 
to  fail.  It  is  all  too  immense  in  proportions,  too  high, 
too  wide :  one  is  confused,  one  cannot  take  it  all  in. 
One  is  inclined  to  be  severe,  but  it  is  above  criticism, 
for  the  effect  on  the  senses,  compelling  admiration,  is 
undeniable.  Once  more  we  may  have  recourse  to 
Theophile  Gautier,  who  finds  in  such  work  the  richest, 
the  most  adorable,  the  most  charming  bad  taste. 
'  The  object  of  the  sculptor  seems  to  have  been  to 
crowd  together  as  much  ornament  as  possible  in  the 
least  possible  space.  Here  we  find  truncated  columns 
garlanded  with  clinging  vines,  interminable  scrolls 
inextricably  convoluted,  cherubs'  heads  furnished  with 
wings,  overcharged  clouds,  blazing  and  agitated  flames, 
glories  spreading  out  fan-shaped,  curly  leaf-work  in 
half  open  bud  or  full  expansion — all  this,  gilded  and 
painted  in  nature's  richest  colours.  It  is  no  longer  the 
delicacy  and  refinement  of  Gothic,  nor  has  it  the  classic 
taste  of  the  Renaissance :  instead  of  purity  of  line, 
there  is  redundance.  Yet  still  it  is  very  fine,  as  is  all 
that    is    excessive   and    complete   of  its    kind.'      That 

2IO 


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2     B 


SPANISH    REALISM 

indeed  is  the  impression  one  receives.  Despite  of  all, 
one  is  forced  to  admire,  as  ages  and  millions  have 
admired  and  praised.  The  retablo  of  the  high  altar  of 
the  cathedral  of  Toledo,  again  of  larchvvood,  is  the 
work  of  Enrique  de  Egas  and  Pedro  Gumiel.  Except 
the  statues  and  the  figures  of  the  bas-reliefs,  which  are 
of  the  art  of  the  encarnador  and  the  estofador,  it  is 
fully  gilt,  and,  it  may  be  said,  peculiarly  typical  of  the 
estofado  style  of  Gothic  flamboyant  which  ended  in 
becoming  utterly  debased  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries. 

We  have  still  to  occupy  ourselves  with  the  carved 
choir  work  and  stalls  in  a  succeeding  chapter,  and  a 
longer  consideration  of  the  wood-carving,  generally,  of 
the  Peninsula  would  lead  us  too  far  into  the  domain  of 
Spanish  art  as  a  whole,  and  beyond  the  limits  of  date 
within  which  it  is  necessary  to  confine  our  attention. 
The  subject  also  is  more  than  ordinarily  connected 
with  painting  and  with  sculpture  in  stone  and  marble, 
and  would  necessitate  constant  allusions  to  these. 
The  influence  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  was  irresist- 
ible, and,  once  established,  of  the  most  rapid  growth, 
though  the  process  itself  may  have  been  slow  and 
tentative  in  its  early  stages.  Soon,  however,  we  find 
the  Spanish  passion  for  realism  overpowering  every- 
thing else.  Such  masters  of  painting  as  da  Mena  and 
Cano  did  not  disdain  to  give  their  aid  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  figures  clothed  with  painted  stuffs,  with  addi- 
tions of  metal  work,  real  chains  and  cords  and  the 
like.  Examples  may  be  seen  in  the  solitary  case 
in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  which  contains 
in  that  collection  the  few  contributions  to  this  kind 
of  work.  The  difference  is  great  between  it  and 
that  which  is  exemplified  in  such  beautiful  figures  as 
the  one  of  Saint  Catherine,  elsewhere  in  the  museum, 
and  at  one  time  in  the  Maskell  collection.  It  is, 
however,  hardly  to  be  regretted  that  these  seventeenth- 

211 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

century  painted  figures  are  not  more  largely  repre- 
sented. One  is  compelled  to  ask  whether  we  are  to 
consider  such  things  as  paintings  or  as  sculptures, 
and  the  question  becomes  exceedingly  complicated. 
The  system  was  carried  to  excess.  Every  one  has 
heard  of  the  crucifix  of  Burgos  with  its  revolting 
realism,  whether  it  be  true  or  not  that  the  figure  is 
covered  with  human  skin.  Again  following  the  ideas 
of  Th^ophile  Gautier,  one  cannot  but  admit  that  the 
passion  for  truth  was  pushed  to  its  ultimate  limits. 
We  are  spared  not  one  drop  of  blood.  We  are  forced 
to  contemplate  the  severed  and  contracted  nerves,  the 
quivering  flesh,  the  limbs  mangled  by  the  executioner, 
the  wounds  caused  by  the  stripes.  It  is  all  too  sug- 
gestive of  the  shambles.  However  repelling  it  may 
be,  this  craving  for  realistic  horrors  is  characteristic  of 
Spanish  art  and  of  the  people,  to  whom  the  ideal  and 
the  aesthetic  are  absolutely  foreign.  Sculpture  alone 
does  not  suffice.  Their  statues  must  be  coloured,  their 
madonnas  plastered  with  paint,  furnished  with  eyes  of 
glass,  with  tears  of  pearl,  and  with  real  clothes.  For 
their  tastes,  illusion  can  never  be  carried  far  enough. 
In  my  Ivories  of  this  series,  I  have  already  described 
the  crucifix  in  the  church  of  St.  James  in  Manchester 
Square.  In  this,  in  many  ways,  it  must  be  admitted, 
admirable  figure,  the  spirit  of  imitative  realism  is 
carried  as  far  as  possible  without  provoking  remon- 
strance, for  it  has  many  beauties.  The  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum  has  a  crucifix  with  the  figure  in  box- 
wood, by  Alonso  Cano  of  quite  another  type,  for  which, 
however,  little  can  be  said  as  a  work  of  fine  art.  The 
painted  bust  of  a  '  Mater  Dolorosa'  (Plate  xxxiii.)  in  the 
same  museum  is  a  popular  and  representative  work,  by 
an  unknown  sculptor.  Inspired  from  Italy — one  may 
say  by  Mino  da  Fiesole  or  Nerrochio  and  the  Siena 
school — it  may  even  have  been  produced  in  Italy.  Yet 
it  is  unmistakably  Spanish.      There  is  another  such 

212 


PLATE   XXX /I/ 


-1.     .'/.1/Aa    /'('/.((ACS,).     KL  l.l.\'    I'AINIKD.     Sl'AM^Il.     >K\KN1KKN1H    i.KNI'    KN 
PORTION   OF   A   PRKDKLLA.     PAIXTLD.     SPANISH.     SEVENTKKNTH    CKNTUKV 

VICTORIA    ASt)    ALIIERT   MLSEl'M 
I'AC.E    212 


SPANISH    REALISM 

figure  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  ascribed  by  Dr.  Bode  to 
Montanez.  It  is  still  more  expressive  of  grief,  with 
solid  tears  of  crystal  upon  the  painted  cheeks.  Both 
are  of  oak,  and  painted  in  oils.  It  would  be  impos- 
sible to  pass  by  the  celebrated  statue  of  St.  Francis  in 
the  cathedral  of  Toledo,  though  we  may  not  agree  with 
the  somewhat  extravagant  praise  which  has  been  given 
to  it.  At  one  time  attributed  to  Alonso  Cano,  it  is 
now  generally  admitted  to  be  by  Pedro  da  Mena. 
There  is  another,  at  one  time  in  the  Odiot  collection, 
with  which  it  has  considerable  analogy,  and,  indeed,  as 
it  is  more  generally  known  and  as  opportunities  for 
examining  it  are  more  favourable,  one  may  be  justified 
in  considering  it  by  far  the  finer  of  the  two.  Both  are 
of  walnut,  fully  painted.  The  saint  is  represented  in 
his  habit,  the  hood  drawn  over  his  head,  the  waist 
girdled  with  a  cord,  the  pale  ascetic  face,  that  one  sees 
in  the  depth  of  the  hood,  calm,  yet,  as  it  were,  in  an 
ecstasy  of  pious  suffering.  Of  the  time  there  is 
certainly  no  other  work  so  fine  in  painted  Spanish 
sculpture  in  wood. 


213 


CHAPTER    XII 

CRUCIFIXES  AND  MADONNA  FIGURES 

FIGURES  for  crucifixes,  statuettes,  and  groups 
of  the  Virgin  and  Child,  and  single  figures  of 
various  saints,  in  Gothic  and  pre-Gothic  times, 
form  a  very  important  division  of  our  subject.  All  art 
of  these  periods  being  religious  art,  the  first  named  are 
almost  sufficient  by  themselves  to  reconstitute  the 
history  of  sculpture  and  its  development  through  the 
Romanesque  period  and  until  the  Gothic  merged  into 
Renaissance  methods.  But  whatever  may  have  been 
the  relative  importance  of  wood  sculpture  among  the 
other  arts,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  equally  with 
monumental  figure  work,  it  held  its  place  in  subordina- 
tion to  architecture.  An  examination  of  this  class  of 
the  figure  work  of  the  earlier  period  would  show  two 
different  types  :  the  one  resulting  from  carefully  trans- 
mitted traditions  derived  from  oriental  sources,  the 
other  the  rude  efforts  of  the  independent  self-taught 
artist  doing  his  best  to  copy  faithfully  from  models, 
which,  in  one  way  or  another,  came  into  his  hands. 
Some  examples  are  evidently  the  work  of  simple 
country  people  rather  than  of  trained  artists  or  estab- 
lished workshops,  but  they  are  on  this  account  none 
the  less  touching  and  valuable.  In  previous  chapters 
frequent  references  have  been  made  to  the  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  artist  from  the  hieratic  domination 
which  had  long  prevailed.  But  our  information  is 
vague  indeed  concerning  the  practical  methods  by 
214 


EARLY    CRUCIFIXES 

which  this  was  accomplished.  From  the  designing 
and  erection  of  buildings  and  their  monumental  sculp- 
ture, down  to  the  smallest  details  of  artistic  work 
of  any  description,  the  impulse  and  direction  were  in 
the  hands  of  the  monasteries,  but  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing  what  was  the  actual  work  of  the  monks  and 
what  of  lay  artists  outside  their  precincts.  There  are 
references  to  monastic  art  in  the  carving  of  crucifixes 
in  the  chronicles  of  Subiaco  of  the  second  half  of  the 
eleventh  century,  which  prove  their  activity  in  this  line, 
but,  as  usual,  the  information  is  vague.  Even  with 
regard  to  dates  we  have  to  be  content  with  such  vague 
ascriptions  as  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  century.  Now 
the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years  is  a  considerable  time, 
and  from  the  beginning  of  one  century  to  the  end  of 
another  involves  twice  as  long.  In  addition,  we  have 
to  bear  in  mind  the  persistence  of  types  and  the  copy- 
ing and  adapting  which  would  have  gone  on  for 
perhaps  a  century  longer.  It  is  unfortunate  that  our 
examples  of  an  earlier  date  than  the  eleventh  century 
are  few  indeed.  When  we  reach  the  twelfth  they 
become,  even  if  still  few  in  number,  of  the  highest 
importance,  not  only  as  connecting  links  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  arts,  but  also  from  their  own  intrinsic 
beauty.  The  dark  ages,  during  which  all  arts  had 
slept  except  the  art  of  war,  had  passed.  Everything 
was  waking  up.  It  was  the  age  of  literature,  of 
chivalry,  of  devotion,  and  of  a  passionate  longing  for 
graphic  expression.  The  archaic,  squat  proportions  of 
the  figure  sculpture,  the  total  disregard  of  truth  to 
nature,  and  a  uniform  blank  stolidity  of  expression 
give  place  to  a  tendency  towards  the  opposite  extreme, 
and  the  effort  to  express  elegance  of  form  is  sought 
after  in  an  exaggerated  length  of  limb  and  straight- 
flowing  draperies  in  parallel  folds.  Progress  is  com- 
paratively rapid,  and  sculptural  art  seems  to  have 
arrived  in  the  thirteenth  century  at  the  point  of  its 

215 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

highest  idealistic  expression.  Unfortunately  we  can- 
not hope  to  find  in  our  museums  and  churches  many 
examples  of  single  figures  in  wood.  Even  in  monu- 
mental sculpture  what  exists  are,  for  the  most  part,  on 
the  facades  of  famous  cathedrals,  saved,  by  their 
position,  from  the  destructions  which  a  law  of  nature 
seems  to  impose  on  every  country  from  time  to  time. 
In  addition,  there  is  the  perishable  nature  of  wood. 

The  crucifix  (more  strictly,  the  figures  for  crucifixes) 
is  one  of  the  most  important  applications  of  sculpture 
to  religious  purposes  ;  but  examples  in  any  material  of 
an  earlier  date  than  the  twelfth,  or  of  mid-Gothic  type 
than  the  fourteenth,  century  are  of  extreme  rarity.  In 
ivory  there  exist  scarcely  any  at  all  earlier  than  the 
seventeenth  century,  but  in  wood  rood  figures  abound 
in  all  countries  except  in  England.  It  will  be  unneces- 
sary here  to  review  the  history  of  the  representation  of 
the  crucifixion.  I  have  referred  to  it  at  considerable 
length  in  my  Ivories  of  this  series.  Many  centuries 
— five  hundred  years  at  least — passed  by  before  the 
reverential  awe  which  hung  about  all  reference  to  the 
sacred  event  permitted  any  representation  at  all  in 
which  a  human  figure  should  be  used,  and  many  more 
during  which  the  figure  was  hardly  more  than  a  con- 
ventional formula.  St.  Gregory  of  Tours,  about  593, 
mentions  a  painting  in  the  church  of  Narbonne  repre- 
senting Christ  on  the  Cross.  He  remarks  that  the 
Saviour  was  unclothed,  except  by  a  loin-cloth,  and  that 
this  nudity  was  a  cause  of  scandal  to  the  faithful.  {In 
gloria  Martyrum,  22.)  It  would  not  be  difficult,  start- 
ing from  the  doors  of  Santa  Sabina  in  Rome  and 
continuing  up  to  the  crucifix  which  Brunelleschi  made 
in  competition  with  Donatello,  to  write  from  the 
examples  we  have  in  wood  alone  the  story  of  the 
evolution  of  the  crucifix  as  we  find  it  in  the  universal 
type  of  to-day.  But  it  would  require  more  space  than 
we  have  at  our  disposal  and  many  illustrations.  A 
216 


I'l.All-:  .V.V.\7/' 


I'AKTS   OK   CRrciIIX    f'KURK.S.     KKKNCH.     TWKl.l' HI    CKNTUKY 

mimx'm,  pakis.     _■.  i.i1uvi.1-.  muskim.     douckt  ilkoukst.     3.  t duvke  museum.     chukajuu  hevuksl 

pac;k  117 


ROMANESQUE    CRUCIFIXES 

choice  of  a  few  only  will  therefore  be  made,  and  the 
description  of  them  must  be  brief.  I  may  say  at  once 
that  it  is  with  the  greatest  regret  that  I  find  it  neces- 
sary to  condense  what  is,  equally  with  Madonna 
figures,  a  most  important  part  of  our  subject.  In  the 
eleventh  century  the  Byzantine  formula — archaic,  as  in 
the  ivory  crucifix  of  Leon,  now  in  the  archaeological 
museum,  Madrid — was  the  model  throughout  the 
world.  The  art  was  primitive,  the  figure  draped  in  a 
long  skirt,  the  feet  nailed  separately,  the  eyes  staring 
and  expressionless.  In  the  Romanesque  period,  the 
idea  was  of  a  Christ  triumphant  rather  than  of  suffer- 
ing Humanity.  In  the  two  or  three  examples  presently 
to  be  adduced,  and  in  many  others,  the  head  of  our 
Lord  is  of  the  noblest  type.  He  is  represented  with 
the  eyes,  as  a  rule,  closed,  in  the  moment  before  death  ; 
not  as  a  human  being  still  suffering  the  most  cruel 
tortures.  The  tragedy  is  finished,  nothing  remains  but 
an  impassive  serenity.  The  hair  is  conventionally 
treated  in  a  hardly  ever  varying  fashion  of  regularly 
curled  bands  arranged  in  long  channelling  streaks,  the 
undulating  locks  of  the  moustache  and  beard  each 
ending  in  a  little  curl.  Sometimes  there  is  a  fillet  or 
diadem,  but  no  crown  of  thorns,  which  seems  not  to 
have  been  common  before  the  thirteenth  century.  A 
detail  that  must  not  be  forgotten  is  that  it  was  usual  to 
add  a  metal  crown  set  thick  with  jewels.  The  expres- 
sion is  full  of  simplicity ;  of  the  nobility  of  suffering. 
There  is  no  exaggeration  of  enduring  agony,  but  as  M. 
Courajod  has  well  said,  '  it  is  a  king  asleep  ' :  or,  at 
least,  it  is  the  placid  calm  which  comes  after  death  to 
those  who  have  suffered  violence  or  some  dreadful 
accident.  Yet,  if  we  should  take,  for  example,  the 
twelfth  century  Christ  of  the  Doucet  collection 
(Plate  XXXIV.),  or  even  the  fourteenth-century  crucifix 
of  Anderlecht,  the  artist  has  known  how  to  express, 
without   attempting  absolute    realism,    the   sufferings 

217 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

which  have  been  passed  through.  The  head  falls,  the 
mouth  is  slightly  open,  the  eyes  closed  as  if  in  sleep, 
the  expression  calm  and  resigned.  One  cannot  but 
think  that  the  sculptor  has  gone  to  nature  for  his 
inspiration,  even  if  he  has  respected  and  continued 
traditional  models  in  certain  features,  such  as  the  hair 
and  beard. 

To  sum  up  the  characteristics  which  distinguish  a 
crucifix  of  early  Romanesque  type  from  one  of  Gothic 
times,  the  figure  hangs  straight,  and  is  not  contorted, 
the  arms  are  at  right  angles,  the  head  erect,  the  eyes 
closed  or  calmly  impassive  if  open,  the  body  some- 
what emaciated,  the  feet  nailed  separately,  and  resting 
on  a  scabellimi,  the  hair  falling  in  serpentine  ring- 
lets over  the  shoulders,  the  lines  of  the  ribs,  and 
folds  of  flesh  regularly  marked  in  a  conventional 
manner,  a  short  plain  skirt  from  waist  to  knees.  It 
is  a  representation  of  Divinity  triumphing  over  Death. 
As  we  approach  to  and  are  afterwards  in  full  Gothic 
times,  the  body  becomes  contorted,  there  is  more 
naturalism  in  the  eyes,  the  knees  are  drawn  up,  the 
body  falls  with  its  own  weight,  the  arms  depart  more 
and  more  from  the  horizontal,  the  feet  are  nailed  with 
one  nail,  the  crown  of  thorns  appears,  the  drapery  is 
scanty.  The  artist  seeks  to  give,  in  every  way,  an  im- 
pression of  human  suffering,  and  to  express  it — as 
when  we  reach  the  Italian  quattrocento  masterpieces — 
by  the  display  of  anatomical  knowledge.  The  body  is 
almost  completely  nude,  or,  as  we  shall  find  in  di  Nuto's 
crucifixes  equally  as  in  the  paintings  of  Giotto  and 
others,  whom,  no  doubt,  the  sculptors  followed,  the 
beautiful  form  is  partly  covered  with  a  transparent 
drapery  of  a  thin  silky  material.  The  Christ  is  no 
longer  the  King,  the  Divine  conqueror,  with  regal 
attributes  and  emblems.  It  is  the  human  side,  the 
sacrifice  by  suffering  which  is  emphasized.  To  take 
for  example  the  crucifix — French  work  of  the  twelfth 
218 


ROMANESQUE    CRUCIFIXES 

centur)^ — presented  to  the  museum  of  the  Louvre  in 
1903  by  M.  Courajod  (Plate  xxxiv.).  It  is  interesting  to 
compare  this  with  the  beautiful  ivory  crucifix  fragment 
of  the  thirteenth  century  in  the  Kensington  Museum, 
described  and  figured  in  my  Ivories  (p.  257).  The 
character  of  each  is  widely  different,  yet  each  is  the 
u^ork  of  a  great  artist  who  knew  what  he  was  doing, 
and  was  under  no  servile  restraint  of  tradition.  Nor 
have  the  Courajod,  and  much  less  the  ivory  figure,  any- 
thing in  common  with  the  archaic  hieratism  of  the  ivory 
crucifix  of  Leon  or  with  the  type  of  the  Limoges 
bronzes  of  an  indeterminate  number  of  years  earlier. 
Romanesque  it  is,  no  doubt,  but  in  its  truthful  natural- 
ness this  admirable  head  of  a  supernatural  beauty, 
calm,  resigned,  is  fairly  comparable  to  the  Gothic  figure 
of  Kensington.  The  artist  knew  what  to  observe  in 
nature,  knew  what  to  take  and  what  to  leave,  in  his 
submission  to  the  rules  in  which  he  had  been  trained. 
He  has  gone,  no  doubt,  to  more  ancient  models  for  the 
treatment  of  the  hair  and  beard,  and  for  certain  general 
principles,  but  the  individuality  of  his  work  is  not 
obscured  by  this.  It  is  of  a  type  that  we  should  hardly 
have  expected  to  find  developed  before  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  In  the  anatomy  we  see  how 
nature  has  been  consulted,  but  w^ithout  any  servile 
attempt  at  reproducing  it.  The  artist  is  impatient  of 
the  bonds  under  which  art  had  so  long  been  held  in 
leash,  yearning  for  freedom,  yet  obedient  to  those 
traditions  in  which  he  had  been  trained  that  he  knew 
to  be  good  and  reasonable  in  themselves.  From  the 
position  of  one  of  the  arms  it  may  be  part  of  a  Deposi- 
tion group  rather  than  an  actual  crucifixion  :  the 
beginning  of  the  first  stage  of  the  taking  down  from 
the  Cross.  The  figure  is  painted  after  the  methods  of 
Theophilus,  so  often  alluded  to  here.  There  are  some 
restorations,  for  example,  the  whole  of  the  left  arm, 
but  the  head,  if  somewhat  deteriorated  by  the  ravages 

219 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

of  time,  is  fairly  preserved.  The  art  is  of  the  southern 
districts  of  France  :  of  Toulouse,  or  perhaps  of  the 
Burgundian  provinces.  There  are  other  early  French 
examples  of  almost  equal  merit ;  for  instance,  that  of 
the  presbytery  of  St.  Denis  d'Amboise,  but  they  can- 
not now  be  followed. 

A  few  words  must  accompany  another  beautiful 
fragment  here  illustrated  (Plate  xxxiv.).  It  is  the  head 
of  a  crucifix  figure  bequeathed  to  the  Louvre  by 
M.  Doucet.  It  is  of  oak,  and,  unfortunately,  not 
in  good  condition.  Still,  sufficient  remains  to  afford 
a  very  fine  example  of  the  beginnings  of  realism, 
and  one  may  reasonably  come  to  the  conclusion 
that,  at  so  early  a  period,  the  artist  worked  from 
a  living  model.  Another  fragment  is  the  fine  life- 
sized  head  in  chestnut  wood  in  the  Cluny  Museum 
(Plate  XXXIV.).  It  is  again  twelfth-century  work,  at  one 
time  covered  with  linen  or  parchment  painted  to  repre- 
sent the  human  skin.  The  expression  is  full  of 
benevolence,  the  eyes  open,  the  hair  carefully  divided, 
and  there  is  no  crown  of  thorns.  Our  general  observ^a- 
tions,  which  apply  to  all  the  figures  of  the  period,  need 
not  be  repeated.  It  is  impossible  to  fix  a  definite  date 
or  a  place  of  production  for  these  early  examples  of 
crucifixes  in  wood.  Usually  of  life-size,  or  even 
colossal,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  many  were  made  in 
Auvergne,  where  the  early  type  both  of  these  and  of 
Madonnas  continued  into  quite  late  in  the  thirteenth 
century :  some  features,  as  in  the  black  Christs  of  Saint- 
Flour  and  of  Montsalvy  to  as  late,  perhaps,  as  the 
fifteenth  century.  The  reader  may  be  referred  to  the 
work  on  the  Romanesque  churches  of  the  Haute, 
Auvergne,  by  M.  de  Rochemonteix,  in  which  several 
are  mentioned  (see  Bibliography).  A  twelfth-century 
crucifix  at  Clermont  Ferrand  has  the  eyes  enamelled, 
and  the  mouth  made  to  move  with  springs  which 
might  be  actuated  by  the  preacher's  foot.  The  Christ 
220 


ITALIAN    CRUCIFIXES 

of  the  church  of  Anderlecht,  in  Brabant,  is  a  work  of 
the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  of  rare  merit,  yet 
showing  in  its  somewhat  stiff  and  conventional  ana- 
tomy, and  in  the  fashion  of  the  long  dank  hair,  in  the 
style  of  the  South  Kensington  ivory,  the  persistence  of 
the  ancient  styles.  So  also  in  a  fifteenth-century  rood 
group  in  the  same  museum  (No.  714,  1895)  the  Saviour's 
head  distinctly  follows  a  much  earlier  type,  at  the  same 
time  that  the  figure  of  St.  John  has  the  slimness  and 
all  the  smirking  mannerism  of  the  period.  Another 
interesting  early  figure  is  that  of  the  church  of  Saint- 
Pierre,  Louvain,  possibly  part  of  a  Deposition  group. 
Westlake,  commenting  on  it,  thought  it  as  early  as  the 
tenth  centur}^  But  the  feet  are  nailed  together,  and 
this,  together  with  the  realistic  type,  can  hardly  place  it 
earlier  than  the  end  of  the  twelfth  or  even  into  the 
thirteenth. 

A  brief  mention  must  suffice  to  call  attention 
to  a  Deposition  group  of  the  Pisan  school  in  the 
cathedral  of  Volterra.  It  is  over  life-size,  and  whether 
as  an  example  of  the  system  of  polychrome  in  sculp- 
ture of  the  period,  or  on  account  of  its  own  intrinsic 
merits,  it  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the  finest  pieces 
of  Italian  romanesque  or  romanesque  Gothic  in  exist- 
ence. With  regard  to  date,  it  would  be  difficult  to  be 
more  precise  than  by  according  the  margin  of  from  the 
first  half  of  the  twelfth  to  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  first  approximate  date  being  the  most 
likely.  The  subject  of  the  earlier  crucifixes  might  be 
pursued  to  an  unlimited  extent,  and  there  is  ample 
material  for  illustration.  Of  Italian  examples  of  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  it  must  suffice  to  note 
briefly  those  of  Nicolo  di  Nuto  of  the  Sienese  school, 
of  which  there  are  several  at  Orvieto  in  the  churches  of 
San  Francesco  and  San  Domenico,  and  in  the  muni- 
cipal museum.  They  are  life-size  and  over,  painted  of 
course,  and  of  astounding  realism  in  the  attention  to 

221 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

anatomical  detail.  (Figured  in  Venturi,  Storia,  iv. 
325.)  Italian  crucifixes  of  the  fifteenth  century  are 
very  numerous.  Probably  all  the  great  sculptors  in 
marble,  bronze,  the  precious  metals,  and  in  wood,  would 
have  tried  their  hands  at  a  subject  which  combined 
their  skill  in  anatomical  expression  with  the  exercise  of 
their  imagination  and  piety.  Vasari  mentions  a  large 
number  who  worked  them  in  wood  :  amongst  them 
Verrocchio  who,  he  says,  was  a  universal  genius,  at  once 
goldsmith,  sculptor,  painter,  engraver,  and  musician. 
But  it  is  necessary  to  confine  ourselves  to  the  two 
famous  crucifixes  of  Brunelleschi  (Plate  xxxv.)  and  of 
Donatello  in  the  churches  of  Santa  Maria  Novella 
and  of  the  Santa  Croce  at  Florence.  We  may  take 
it,  that  leaving  on  one  side  the  question  of  cruci- 
fixions in  painting,  the  first  is  the  ultimate  expres- 
sion of  the  system  evolved  from  its  forerunners 
from  early  Christian  times,  through  the  archaicism 
of  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  and  the  man- 
nerisms of  the  Gothic  period :  the  precursor  of 
the  type  continued  to  this  day.  In  it  we  have  this 
method  in  its  purest  and  best  form,  imbued  with  all  the 
new  spirit  of  humanism,  perfect  in  anatomy,  touching 
in  expression,  yet  avoiding  anything  like  the  horrors  of 
cruel  torment,  and  the  exaggerations  of  the  effect  of 
wounds.  The  head  is  simply  filleted  over  the  carefully 
curled  hair,  the  drapery  simple  without  fluttering  ends, 
the  arms  at  a  more  acute  angle  than  formerly,  the 
emaciated  anatomy  naturalistic,  the  expression  thought- 
ful rather  than  suffering.  As  a  masterpiece  of  sculp- 
ture its  own  interest  is  very  great,  and  in  addition  there 
is  the  curious  tradition  of  its  origin  arising  from  a  con- 
test with  Donatello  when  the  two  were  fellow-pupils  in 
the  same  studio,  Brunelleschi  being  then  twenty-four, 
and  Donatello  nine  years  younger.  The  story  has  often 
been  told,  and  though  we  may  be  inclined  to  doubt  the 
possibility  of  Brunelleschi  having  arrived  at  such 
222 


rr.ATF  v.v.vr 


CRUCIFIX.       BY   BKrNELLESCHI.       FIFTEENTH    CEN  ItUn 

SANIA   MARIA  NOVELLA.  H  ORENCt 
PAGE  223 


DONATELLO  AND  BRUNELLESCHI 

masterly  perfection  at  so  early  an  age,  it  may  be  given 
on  the  authority  of  Vasari  in  his  own  words,  as  we  have 
them  in  his  Lives  of  the  Painters.  He  says  in  his 
Life  of  Brunelleschi'.  *  Now  it  happened  in  those  days 
that  Donatello  had  completed  a  crucifix  in  wood  which 
was  placed  in  the  church  of  Santa  Croce  in  Florence, 
beneath  the  story  of  the  girl  restored  to  life  by  St. 
Francis,  a  picture  painted  by  Taddeo  Gaddi,  and  he 
desired  to  have  the  opinion  of  Filippo  respecting  his 
work,  but  he  repented  of  having  asked  it  since  Filippo 
replied  that  he  had  placed  a  clown  on  the  Cross. 
Donatello  answers,  "Take  wood,  then,  and  make  one 
thyself."  Filippo  quietly  and  secretly  goes  to  work  and 
does  so,  to  Donato's  so  great  surprise  that,  carrying  an 
apron  full  of  eggs  the  first  time  it  is  shown  to  him,  he 
drops  and  breaks  them  all,  and  not  only  confesses  him- 
self conquered,  but  declares  the  work  a  miracle.'  We 
may  briefly  dispatch  the  attempt  of  Donatello.  His 
fame  will  rest  on  the  great  bronze  crucifix  in  the  Santo 
at  Padua,  executed  many  years  later.  Cicognara,  in  his 
Storia,  thus  compares  the  two :  Donatello's  crucifix  is 
rigid,  ignoble,  without  abandon  and  without  softness, 
with  neither  grace  nor  elevation  of  feeling.  The 
other  is  the  eternal  glory  of  Brunelleschi.  And  in- 
deed Donatello  has  put  on  the  Cross  a  powerful, 
muscular  man,  whom  the  stripes  and  wounds  have 
hardly  weakened,  and  whom  Death  has  not  subdued. 
In  the  art  of  Brunelleschi,  inspired  above  all  by 
devotional  feeling,  he  gives  us  the  sufferings  and  death 
in  the  accomplishment  of  the  sacrifice.  In  regard  to 
the  German  crucifixes  in  wood  of  the  fourteenth  and 
early  fifteenth  centuries,  which  abound,  space  will  now 
permit  but  a  brief  mention.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  some  of  those  by  Veit  Stoss  and 
Riemenschneider.  The  earlier  examples  follow  the 
type  which  was  universal  in  Romanesque  times. 
Many  of  the  representations  of  Calvary  in  the  German 

223 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

retables  conform  to  the  schools  of  the  Netherlands, 
and  are  evidently  inspired,  directly  or  indirectly,  by 
the  Flemish  and  German  primitives.  We  find  the 
same  tall  crosses  with  narrow  beams,  the  long  thin 
legs  and  arms,  the  same  carriage  of  head  and  drawing 
of  the  feet,  the  same  expressions.  In  a  small  four- 
teenth-century relief  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum 
we  have  a  following  of  the  system  so  usual  in  French 
Gothic  ivories,  especially  in  the  pose  of  the  body,  and 
in  the  knotted  anatomy  of  the  arms.  And  when  we 
come  to  the  life-size  and  colossal  crucifixes  of  the  late 
German  Gothic  period,  it  is  evident  that  Veit  Stoss 
and  his  contemporaries  merely  profited  by  their  Italian 
education,  and  that  the  models  from  which  they 
adapted  were  those  of  the  schools  of  Donatello  and 
Brunelleschi.  To  these  they  added  their  own  man- 
nerisms and  an  exaggerated  treatment  of  the  drapery 
which  is  especially  characteristic  of  German  crucifixes. 
This  was  made  to  serve  a  decorative  purpose,  and  they 
revelled  in  twists  and  curves  and  floating  scrolls  which 
at  times  verged  on  the  fantastic.  It  must  suffice  to 
mention  two  well-known  crucifixes,  attributed  to  Veit 
Stoss,  which  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  many  others 
of  more  or  less  merit.  The  first,  at  one  time  in  the 
Spitalkirche,  is  now  in  the  Germanic  Museum  of 
Nurnberg ;  the  other,  which  presents  great  similarities, 
is  in  the  Chiesa  d'Ogni  Santi  at  Florence. 

Still  more  instructive  than  the  crucifixes,  with 
regard  to  the  evolution  of  sculpture  in  wood  up 
to  the  end  of  the  Gothic  period,  are  the  Madonna 
figures  and  groups.  These  are  fairly  numerous,  and 
include,  besides  such  pairs  of  detached  figures  as 
the  Annunciation  statues  of  Italy,  those  in  w^hich 
we  have  the  Blessed  Virgin  standing  with  the  Child 
in  her  arms,  or  seated  either  alone  or  with  the  Infant, 
in  many  touching  maternal  attitudes ;  as  the  Mater 
Dolorosa  at  the  foot  of  the  cross,  or  weeping  over 
224 


EARLY    MADONNAS 

the  dead  Saviour  in  the  groups  known  as  Pietas. 
Several  of  the  two  last-named  kinds  have  already 
been  noticed.  We  shall  now  confine  our  attention 
to  the  Madonnas  as  the  term  is  generally  used.  In 
the  twelfth  century,  as  in  earlier  representations,  the 
Virgin  sits  throned  in  majesty,  as  a  great  queen  or 
empress,  the  chair  itself  an  emblem  of  authority  of  the 
kind  which  we  find  on  the  consular  diptychs.  She 
herself  is  the  only  figure,  the  centre  of  homage  and 
devotion,  almost  of  worship :  a  figure  of  majestic 
hieratic  dignity,  noble  and  queenly,  inexpressibly  great, 
as  the  one  chosen  from  amongst  all  by  the  Almighty. 
She  is  not  yet  the  tender  mother,  effacing  herself  and 
concentrating  attention  on  the  child  which  she  presents 
to  us  for  our  adoration,  emphasizing  her  maternal 
feelings  by  lavish  endearments.  Seldom,  as  soon  was 
to  become  the  universal  style,  is  her  head  affectionately 
turned  towards  Him  as  she  holds  Him  in  her  arms, 
seated  in  her  lap,  or  standing  on  her  knee.  It  is  but 
gradually,  as  the  thirteenth  century  progresses,  that 
she  becomes  the  sweet  and  gentle  mother,  in  the 
attitude  which  was  so  favourite  a  one  ;  for  example, 
in  the  charming  little  early  Madonna  in  the  gallery  at 
Perugia,  where  the  Child  looks  up  in  her  face  and 
seizes  her  chin  with  His  hand.  But,  as  in  other 
paintings,  in  those  of  Cimabue  or  of  Guido  da  Siena, 
in  the  Uffizi,  the  coming  type  is  still  undeveloped. 
The  Byzantine  formula  continues  to  prevail  in  the 
majestic  placidity,  the  solemnity  of  expression  of  the 
Madonna  Gloriosa,  and  in  the  treatment  of  the 
draperies.  The  Romanesque  traditions  linger  long 
throughout  the  earlier  Gothic  period,  even  if  through  a 
comparatively  slow  process  of  evolution  the  statuesque 
gives  place  to  a  more  mundane  type  of  nobility,  the 
solemn  majesty  of  the  Odigitria  to  maternal  tenderness 
and  grace.  Instead  of  an  empress  enthroned  we  are 
presently  to  have  the  courtly  lady,  or,  as  Ruskin  has 
p  225 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

characterized  the  French  thirteenth-century  statuettes, 
the  Picarde  soubrette.  To  what  influences,  indeed,  of 
the  great  masters  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  may  we 
not  attribute  even  Donatello's  'Virgin  of  Padua,'  where 
she  sits,  as  in  the  old  twelfth-century  Madonnas,  on 
a  throne  which  has  sphinxlike  supports,  immovable, 
a  queen  presenting  a  Child  King  to  His  people,  He 
Himself,  enthroned  on  her  lap  with  none  of  the  playful 
suggestiveness  of  the  quattrocento  types  ? 

As  in  the  ivories,  the  twelfth-century  Madonna 
in  wood  is  still  the  central  figure  demanding  our 
attention.  It  is  to  her  that  the  sculptor  addresses 
all  he  knows  of  art.  The  Holy  Child  is,  as  it 
were,  left  to  more  conventional  treatment  as  if  be- 
yond his  power  of  expression.  He  is  grave  beyond 
His  apparent  years,  having  with  the  form  of  a 
child  a  much  older  look,  as  He  raises  His  hand 
in  blessing.  Unfortunately,  what  examples  we  have 
in  wood  in  this  country,  such  as  the  two  in  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  (Plate  xxxvi.),  can  hardly 
be  said  to  be  the  work  of  great  masters,  though  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  sculptors  as  well  as  painters 
would  have  devoted  the  highest  talent  to  such  a 
subject.  Such  figures  as  these  would  seem  to  be 
rather  from  the  hands  of  simple  country  people.  As 
in  the  ivories,  by  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
centur)'  there  came  about  in  the  smaller  figure  work 
a  more  general  assimilation  with  the  monumental 
sculpture  of  the  period.  France  is  foremost  in  setting 
the  fashion,  and  the  dominant  type  is  the  sweet-smiling 
mother  affectionately  toying  with  her  child  ;  the  atti- 
tudes are  of  the  most  studied  grace  pushed  to  ex- 
tremes, which  become  mannerism  ;  the  pose  is  affected, 
at  least  in  the  '  ivory '  twist  or  bend  of  the  figure  ; 
the  draperies  rich  and  voluminous.  Compared  with 
the  feeling  of  the  previous  period,  it  is  as  if  we  were 
transported  from  heavenly  to  earthly  regions.  The 
226 


I'LAIE  XXXVI 


Z       - 
2 


•    I;    O    .r  " 

z  <  s  ' 


-       < 
~      z 


>^ 


MADONNAS 

Mother  of  God  becomes  the  mother  of  our  own  race, 
smiling,  playing,  coquetting  with  the  Child  as  He 
amuses  Himself  with  a  flower,  a  fruit,  or  a  bird,  or 
affectionately  entwines  His  arm  round  her  neck.  They 
are  courtly  figures,  made  for  the  delight  of  courts,  and 
it  is  indeed  hardly  surprising  that  not  in  a  single 
instance  have  figures  of  this  type  been  endowed  by 
the  populace  with  miraculous  gifts  as  in  the  case  of 
the  homely  Flemish  madonnas  to  which  reference 
will  presently  be  made.  There  is  in  fact  almost  a 
stereotyped  pattern,  a  repetition  of  a  similar  smile, 
the  same  candid  expression,  fashion  of  hair  and  veil, 
and  pointed  shoe  peeping  out  beneath  the  multifolded 
draperies.  Yet,  notwithstanding  this  family  resem- 
blance, how  sweet  is  this  series  :  always  the  same,  yet 
always  with  differences  as  we  find  them  in  ivory  and 
wood,  leaving  out  of  consideration  painting  and  other 
branches  of  sculpture !  The  Child  is  almost  always 
clothed.  The  earliest  examples  unclothed  to  the  waist, 
are  not  till  the  second  quarter  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Later  on,  He  is  quite  naked,  and  it  is  about 
mid-fourteenth  century  that  we  first  find  giving  the 
breast  which  afterwards  became  very  usual,  especially 
— if  we  may  judge  from  few  examples — in  England. 
With  the  advance  of  the  fourteenth  century  there  is 
again  a  change  of  feeling ;  a  wholly  different  type. 
As  in  the  representations  of  the  crucifixion  we  had 
put  before  us  Christ  triumphant,  crowned  with  a  royal 
crown  instead  of  one  of  thorns,  and  as  this  gave  way 
to  an  insistence  on  His  suffering  humanity,  so  now 
in  the  Madonnas  the  brightness  and  cheerfulness 
associated  with  the  life  of  the  Virgin  changed  into 
the  tendency  of  emphasizing  and  continually  present- 
ing to  the  devotion  of  the  people  her  sufferings  as  a 
mother  bereaved  of  her  son.  Especially  in  Flemish 
art  the  Holy  Virgin  is  represented  as  fainting  in  the 
arms  of  her  attendants,  weeping  at   the  foot  of  the 

227 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

cross  or  over  the  body  of  our  Lord  extended  on  her 
lap.  It  was  the  result  of  the  devotional  mysticism 
of  the  time,  inspired  by  the  teachings  and  writings  of 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth 
century,  of  St.  Gertrude,  and  by  the  paintings  and 
illuminations  founded  upon  these.  Yet  it  would  be 
difficult  to  lay  down  any  rigid  type,  and,  as  in  painting 
and  in  other  sculptures  national  characteristics  asserted 
themselves.  We  may  note,  however,  the  extreme 
contrasts  presented  between  what  may  be  called  — 
without  denying  its  infinite  charm — the  smart  simper- 
ing type  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  the  nobility  of 
such  a  group  as  the  polychromed  Madonna  in  wood 
in  the  Maignan  collection,  or  of  the  one  in  the  Louvre 
presented  by  M.  Albert  Bossy — both  French  art  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  which  will  presently  be  noticed. 
Madonna  statuettes  in  wood  of  so  early  a  period  as 
the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  are  of  course  of 
considerable  rarity,  as  indeed  they  are  also  among  the 
ivories.  Probably  they  were  numerous  enough,  and 
we  must  judge  their  general  character  from  the  few 
still  existing ;  from  bronze  and  enamel  figures  and 
from  the  early  mosaics.  We  are  fortunate  in  possess- 
ing two  examples  in  the  museum  at  Kensington.  It 
is  interesting  to  compare  these  with  an  ivory  group 
of  somewhat  later  date  in  the  Louvre  from  the  Dutuit 
collection,  with  which  they  are  clearly  connected,  and 
there  are  others  in  the  Cluny  Museum  (No.  1037)  and 
in  the  Basilewsky  collection  of  the  Hermitage,  St. 
Petersburg.  Both  the  wood  and  the  ivory  statuettes 
are  characterized  by  the  archaic  and  stony  attitudes 
peculiar  to  the  age.  In  the  ivories  there  is  certainly 
a  tendency  to  the  realism  which  became  more  marked 
in  the  succeeding  century.  Evidently  the  artists  were 
not  of  the  same  class.  In  the  wood  examples,  particu- 
larly, the  disproportions  of  the  too  long  busts,  the 
too  large  heads  and  the  clumsy  execution  are  marked. 
228 


MADONNAS 

The  impression  first  conveyed  is  that  they  are  hardly 
in  advance  of  the  south  sea  islands  type  of  fetish 
image.  But  we  must  remember  that  they  were  in- 
tended to  be,  and  were  at  one  time,  coloured  and  set 
with  stones  and  gems.  These  are  rude  works  no 
doubt,  but  let  us  put  against  them  the  superb  Madonna 
in  wood  of  the  church  of  Sta.  Maria  Maggiore  at 
Alatri  ;  central,  or  southern  Italian  work  of  the  twelfth 
century.  It  is  the  finest  of  all  existing  Madonnas  of 
the  early  mediaeval  ages,  formerly  polychromed,  now 
entirely  gilded.  The  Child  is  almost  a  smaller  repe- 
tition of  the  figure  of  the  mother,  having  the  same 
long  face,  the  same  expression  and  arrangement  of  the 
hair.  It  is  a  proof  that  at  that  early  time  a  great 
school  of  sculpture  in  the  round  must  have  existed  in 
central  Italy,  and  that  the  art  was  not  confined  to 
ornament  alone.  Although  scarce,  there  are  other  still 
existing  figures  in  various  churches  and  museums. 
Amongst  notable  ones  are  a  seated  Madonna  in  the 
Niirnberg  Museum,  another  in  the  minster  church  of 
Essen  (figured  in  Ausm'  Weerth,  Plate  xxiv.)  which 
has  eyes  of  enamel,  and  two  similar  ones  in  the 
treasury  of  Hildesheim.  Nor  must  we  forget  the 
Madonna  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  made  in  1139  by  the 
priest  Martino,  nor  the  Odigitria,  entirely  gilt,  known 
as  the  Madonna  of  Constantinople.  But  there  is  a 
whole  series  of  Flemish  Madonnas  in  wood  of  the 
thirteenth  century  which  are  still  strongly  marked 
with  the  archaic  type  of  the  Romanesque  formulae, 
yet  show  at  the  same  time  the  existence  of  a  realistic 
school  and  an  independent  observation  of  nature  on 
the  part  of  the  artist.  That  he  was  self-taught  is,  in 
some  cases,  evident.  At  any  rate,  he  followed  freely 
his  own  bent,  released  from  hieratic  conventions  both 
in  the  type  which  he  chose  for  his  model,  in  the  ex- 
pression of  the  features,  and  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
accessories.     In   general,    the    influence  of   France   at 

229 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  beginning  of  the  century  is  not  to  be  contested. 
The  formula  is  similar.  The  Virgin  is  seated  on  a 
thronelike  chair  or  low  bench,  as,  for  example,  in  the 
ivories  of  the  Cluny  or  the  Hamburg  Museum  which 
are  in  certain  ways  analogous.  The  Child  either  sits 
or  stands  on  the  left  knee,  or  on  the  lap,  instead  of 
being  held  in  the  arms  as  was,  later  on,  the  universal 
practice,  and  raises  His  hand  in  blessing.  She  pre- 
sents to  us  with  pride,  as  it  were,  her  son.  The 
draperies  fall  in  long  straight  folds.  The  chief  dis- 
tinctions from  the  French  formulae  are  in  national 
characteristics  or  preferences,  for  which,  as  elsewhere, 
it  is  not  always  easy  to  account.  For  example,  whence 
did  we  English  derive  the  type  of  head  and  expression 
of  features  distinguished  by  the  high  forehead  and 
almond  eyes  of  our  ivory  and  alabaster  figures  of  the 
fourteenth  century?  Except  when  the  inspiration 
would  appear  to  come  directly  from  some  classical 
source,  the  Flemish  Madonna  is  of  the  womanly  rather 
than  of  the  queenly  or  noble  type. 

These  early  Flemish  Madonnas  are,  then,  evidence 
of  the  growing  feeling  for  realism,  whatever  may 
have  been  the  extent  to  which  it  was  reacted  upon 
by  the  increasing  influence  of  French  idealism.  A 
few  of  these  interesting — and  certainly  important — 
figures  may  be  briefly  noted.  Unfortunately  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  obtain  adequate  photographs 
of  them.  The  original  of  the  one  here  given  suffers 
also  from  modern  restoration  and  repainting.  The 
figure  of  the  Child  is  entirely  new.  The  miraculous 
Madonna  of  Alsemberg  —  a  small  village  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Brussels — (Plate  xxxvi.)  presents 
features  which  are  a  combination  of  deeply  -  rooted 
traditional  motives  with  an  evident  endeavour  to  sub- 
stitute for  them  a  more  natural  type  directly  drawn 
from  living  models  with  which  the  artist  was  familiar. 
Naive  though  the  representation  may  be,  there  is 
230 


FLEMISH    MADONNAS 

poetry  in  this  young  mother  calling  for  attention  to 
herself  and  for  adoration  of  her  divine  Child.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  it  should  appeal  to  homely  instincts 
and  even  to  all  classes,  and  thus  become  qualified, 
with  many  of  the  others,  for  miraculous  powers.  The 
curious  smile  in  the  small  half-moon  conformation 
of  the  mouth  is  characteristic  of  several  Flemish 
Madonnas  of  this  period.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  stereotyped 
fashion  confined  to  this  school ;  a  reminiscence  of, 
perhaps,  and  attempt  to  reproduce,  the  mincing  affec- 
tation of  the  French.  Another  image,  of  the  same 
period,  also  reputed  miraculous,  and  of  similar 
advanced  tendencies  is  that  of  the  church  of  Saint 
Sulpice,  Diest.  A  third,  the  Madonna  of  Laeken, 
again  among  the  miraculous,  presents  the  same 
solemn  and  stiff  attitudes  and  traditional  draperies, 
the  Child  held  up  high  on  one  knee.  It  is,  however, 
less  archaic,  and  the  expression  of  the  Virgin  is  more 
refined.  Of  the  same  school  is  the  Madonna  of  Hal. 
Unfortunately  much  damaged,  it  is  of  a  most  remark- 
able type.  The  Holy  Child,  after  having  received  Its 
nourishment,  reposes  on  the  mother's  knee.  The 
physiognomy  of  the  Virgin  has  a  pure  Greek  profile  of 
peculiar  beauty.  The  image  known  as  Notre-Dame  du 
chant  d'Oiseaux — Onze  lieve  Vrouw  in  Vogelzang — in 
the  church  of  the  P^res-Conventuels  of  Brussels,  is  of 
the  second  half  of  the  century  and,  naturally,  is  even 
more  affected  by  French  influence,  though  the  type  of 
face,  and  somewhat  squat  figure  are  still  national.  As 
an  example  of  the  persistence  of  traditions  and  mixture 
of  styles,  we  may  take  the  interesting  Madonna — Virgo 
secies  Sapientice — of  the  church  of  St.  Pierre,  Louvain. 
Here,  we  are  in  full  fifteenth  century  (1442),  yet  the 
attitude  and  the  arrangement  and  style  of  the  draperies 
are  in  accord  with  the  ancient  traditions,  while  the 
head  of  the  Virgin  is  decidedly  realistic,  and  the  Child 
sits  playing  with  a  bird  in  the  French  fashion  of  the 

231 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

time.  Yet  one  more  may  be  cited  in  the  large  Madonna 
figure,  fully  coloured,  of  the  church  of  St.  Jacques, 
Louvain,  one  of  the  finest  existing  of  Flemish  work  of 
the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century.  What  is  most 
noticeable  is  the  unusual  arrangement  of  the  drapery. 
The  Child,  naked  to  the  waist,  is  thence  covered  with 
the  mother's  veil,  except  the  left  leg  from  the  knee. 
The  whole  treatment  of  this  drapery,  the  oblique  line 
from  the  shoulder  across  the  breast,  the  folds  which 
follow  and  do  not  conceal  the  form,  the  indication  of 
some  soft  silky  texture,  the  rich,  jewelled  ornamenta- 
tion— all  this  is  charming,  and  due  not  to  the  poly- 
chrome decoration  alone,  but  to  the  art  of  the  sculptor, 
as  consummate  as  in  any  French  figure  work  of  a 
similar  kind  and  period.  We  have  here  also  the 
fashionable  bend  or  twist  so  much  affected  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  which  has  been  attributed  to  various 
causes,  amongst  them  that  it  was  simply  following  the 
curve  of  an  ivory  tusk.  Personal  influence  in  the 
matter  of  costume  probably  had  more  to  do  with  it. 
A  homely  figure  in  the  church  of  N.  D.  de  la  Dyle  at 
Malines  derives  its  name — Onze  lieve  Vrottw  van  Schewe 
— from  this  peculiarity.  The  references  to  these 
Flemish  Madonnas,  of  which  a  few  have  been  cited, 
have  necessarily  been  brief.  They  are  none  the  less 
of  considerable  importance  in  the  history  of  wood 
sculpture,  and  the  student  will  do  well  to  refer  to  the 
erudite  articles  in  the  Annales  de  la  Socidtd  archdo- 
lo^ique  de  Bruxelles  (toms.  viii.,  ix.,  x.),  by  M.  Destrdes, 
who  photographed  several  of  them  before  they  were 
restored  and  repainted. 

French  Madonna  statuettes  in  wood  of  the  four- 
teenth century  are  comparatively  rare.  The  type 
followed  to  a  considerable  extent,  and  often  preserved 
entirely,  the  traditions  of  the  previous  century.  The 
drapery  alters  somewhat  and  becomes  more  compli- 
cated, displaying  itself  in  voluminous  folds  and 
232 


rr.A  TJ:    A.Wi  I J 


I   l<  i  M    H.       1  I  )l    I-;  I  l.l-.N  IK     (    1    \  I  I    1, 
I.'IUVKK  (llllSSV  OlLI.P.CI  IMNI 
I'AC.I     .•  ;-■ 


MADONNAS 

stiffly  defined  angles  and  zig-zags.  If  we  do  not 
lose  completely  "the  sweetly  smiling  expression, 
amounting  sometimes  to  affectation  and  coquetry, 
there  is  a  tendency,  at  any  rate,  to  greater  nobility, 
more  striving  after  distinction,  less  simpering  coquet- 
tishness,  less  suggestion  of  worldly  fascination.  What 
greater  contrast  could  there  be  than  between  the  almost 
frivolous  type  of  the  thirteenth  century  as  we  have  it 
in  so  many  charming  ivories,  and  the  nobility  of  such 
a  group  as  the  one  in  wood  of  the  Maignan  collection, 
of  another  of  similar  yet  still  finer  character  bequeathed 
to  the  Louvre  by  M.  Albert  Bossy,  or  of  that  in 
the  FitzHenry  collection  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum.  For  all  that,  in  such  figures,  to  use  the 
trite  French  phrase,  the  more  the  changes,  the  more  it 
is  always  the  same  thing.  The  ancient  formulae  cannot 
be  got  rid  of.  The  feeling,  the  attitude  in  general,  the 
draperies  of  the  twelfth  century  are  with  us  still,  two 
hundred  years  later,  and  if  the  Virgin  sits  no  longer  in 
enthroned  majesty,  but  with  a  happy  mother's  smiling 
face,  the  ideal  is  still  there  under  the  more  real.  The 
figures  are,  as  yet,  from  no  human  model.  It  is  merely 
another  phase  of  the  evolution  towards  the  complete 
change  which  a  little  more  than  a  century  was  to  bring 
forth.  May  we  not  bear  in  mind  the  hieratic  Madonna 
of  Donatello  made  for  the  altar  of  the  Cappella  del  Santo 
at  Padua,  that  solemn  figure  of  an  antique  matron  rising 
from  the  richly  decorated  chair  supported  by  sphinxes, 
and  still  holding  in  her  lap  the  Child  Who  blesses  in 
this  rather  awkward  position  ?  It  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that  of  the  whole  of  the  Gothic  period  there  is  no 
finer  group  in  wood  or  ivory — to  go  no  farther — than 
the  Madonna  of  the  Bossy  collection,  now  in  the  Louvre 
(Plate  XXXVII.).  Almost  life-size,  that  is,  about  four 
feet  in  height,  it  is  of  oak,  and  now  in  the  bare  purity 
of  the  wax-polished  wood.  In  it  we  may  recognize  a 
chef-d'oeuvre,  the  ultimate  realization  of  refined  idealism 

233 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

resulting  by  slow  and  measured  steps  from  the  archaic 
hieratism  of  the  twelfth  century  through  the  charming 
aberrations  of  the  thirteenth.  There  is  nothing  here 
of  the  courtly  type,  made  for  the  luxury  of  kings  and 
nobles  rather  than  for  churches,  there  is  nothing  of  the 
coquetry  of  the  grande  dame,  yet  there  is  no  sacrifice 
of  the  ideal  in  its  appeal  to  the  most  humble  also.  We 
may  remark  the  unaffected  pose,  the  fall  of  the  drapery 
concealing,  yet  outlining  the  figure,  the  cushion  in- 
dented by  the  weight  of  the  body,  the  foot  resting  on 
the  head  of  a  basilisk,  the  Child  dressed  in  a  simple 
tunic  playing  and  laughing  as  He  turns  away  from 
His  mother,  holding  the  end  of  her  veil,  toying — after 
the  favourite  fashion — with  a  bird.  If  we  might 
criticise  His  figure,  it  is,  perhaps,  prematurely  old, 
almost  too  clever :  a  sharp  youngster,  even  a  little 
tiresome.  Yet  it  is  the  accepted  type  of  the  time,  from 
which  the  sculptor  had  no  escape.  We  may  remark 
also  the  masterly  treatment  of  the  wrist  of  the  Virgin 
as  she  holds  the  Child's  foot,  and  the  long,  thin, 
delicate  fingers ;  the  feet  of  the  Child,  the  crown  of 
natural  foliage  instead  of  a  jewelled  one.  It  is  no 
doubt  northern  work,  probably  of  the  He  de  France. 
In  fine  condition,  the  restorations  are  confined  to  the 
right  wrist  of  the  Virgin,  and  the  fingers  of  the  right 
hand  of  the  Child.  If  there  is  anything  to  regret,  it  is 
that  it  is  2i  figure  d'' applique,  but  in  a  front  view  this 
is  not  noticeable.  The  FitzHenry  collection  in  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  has  a  somewhat  similar, 
though  smaller  and  not  so  well  executed,  group  ;  the 
drapery  is  more  summary,  the  hands  not  well  modelled. 
But  if  at  Kensington  we  have  no  seated  group  in  wood 
so  admirable,  there  is  a  charming  standing  figure  in  oak, 
also  French,  of  the  same  period  (No.  746,  1895)  (Plate 
XXXVIII.).  It  is  simply  coloured,  the  under-dress  red, 
the  veil  blue,  as  was  usual.  The  expression  of  the 
Virgin's  face  has  all  the  sweet  French  charm,  and  the 

234 


PLATE  XX XVI II 


1.    MADONNA      IKKNCn.     rOURTF.KNTH   CENTURY 

VICTORIA    ANI>    AI.IIKRT    Ml  SEUM. 

2.    ANNA  SFJ.nnRITr  fIROUP.     Fl.KMISII   OR   flKRMAN.     FIFTKKNTH   CENllRY 

VICTORIA    ANI>    AI.HKKT    ML'SEUM   (mASKSI.I.   COLLECTION) 
PAGKS    Il6,  234 


JACOPO    DELLA    QUERCIA 

drapery  is  admirably  simple.  The  Child,  with  a  solemn 
expression  beyond  his  years,  holds  a  gilt  globe.  A 
painted  standing  Madonna  in  walnut,  French  of  the 
early  sixteenth  century  (No.  735,  1895),  no  doubt  a  rood 
figure,  recalls,  in  attitude,  the  Niirnberg  Madonna.  A 
passing  reference  may  be  made  to  the  number  of 
twelfth-century  Madonnas  in  wood  in  the  churches  of 
Auvergne.  There  was  doubtless  in  this  province  a 
long-continued  industry,  usually  in  oak,  in  this  class 
of  wood  sculpture,  and  of  crucifixes.  The  type  con- 
tinued quite  into  the  fifteenth  century ;  for  example  in 
the  Vierge  «(?^V^  of  Molompize.  M.  de  Rochemonteix's 
work  on  the  Romanesque  churches  of  Auvergne  may 
again  be  referred  to,  on  the  subject  of  these  images. 

Noticing  incidentally  an  extremely  fine  fourteenth- 
century  statuette  of  German  origin  in  the  Carrand 
collection  of  the  Bargello  in  order  to  remark  how  little, 
except  the  type  of  face,  there  is  to  distinguish  some 
Flemish  and  German  Madonnas  of  the  period  from 
the  French  by  which  they  w^ere  inspired,  we  may 
take  next  one  or  two  examples  of  the  Italian  trecento, 
and  quattrocento.  We  must  be  contented  with  a  bare 
mention  of  a  standing  figure  of  the  Virgin  and  Child 
in  the  Berlin  Museum.  It  is  of  the  school  of  Giovanni 
Pisano,  and,  bearing  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  his 
ivory  Madonna  in  the  cathedral  of  Pisa,  is  perhaps  by 
his  pupil  Andrea,  father  of  Nino,  whose  Annunciation 
figures  will  presently  occupy  our  attention.  The  reader 
will  appreciate  the  importance  of  these  two  statuettes 
in  the  history  of  sculpture,  and  of  the  evolution  of  ideas 
which  connect  the  pioneers  of  the  Italian  Renaissance 
with  its  later  developments.  One  of  the  earliest 
examples  we  have  of  wood  sculpture  from  the  hand 
of  a  great  master  is  the  life-size  Madonna  and  Child, 
now  in  the  museum  of  the  Louvre,  which,  if  it  cannot 
be  with  absolute  certainty  attributed  to  Jacopo  della 
Quercia  himself,   is   nev^ertheless   so  connected   by  its 

235 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

style  and  by  the  system  of  drapery  to  others  of  his 
known  works  that  it  will  be  sufficient  to  note  that  the 
opinions  of  such  critics  as  Bode,  Fabriczy,  or  Schubring 
leave  the  question  still  unsettled  (Plate  xxxix.).  Con- 
tinuinc:  the  «freat  traditions  of  the  school  which  we 
connect  with  Niccola,  Giovanni,  and  Andrea  da  Pisa, 
it  is  certain  that  amongst  all  the  great  names  of  those 
who  disdained  not  to  handle  wood  as  well  as  marble 
for  great  sculpture,  none  stands  more  prominently 
forward  than  Jacopo  della  Quercia.  The  group  here 
illustrated  is  of  walnut,  the  Virgin  seated  and  clasp- 
ing the  Child,  who  is  almost  entirely  naked,  on  her  lap. 
The  somewhat  long  oval  contour  of  her  face,  the  tender, 
almost  melancholy,  expression,  the  narrow  forehead, 
slightly  protuberant,  the  drawing  of  the  eyelids  and 
eyebrows,  the  eyes  themselves,  the  formation  of  the 
lips,  the  setting  on  of  the  neck,  and  the  style  of  the 
draperies  are  details  which  demand  careful  comparison 
with  other  works  of  the  Sienese  sculptor.  Amongst 
these,  the  most  nearly  related  would  seem  to  be  the 
Madonna  of  the  central  doors  of  San  Petronio,  Bologna, 
and  the  Virgin  of  San  Martino,  which  is  entirely  gilt. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  some  not  inconsiderable  differ- 
ences in  the  shape  of  the  head,  in  the  veil,  and 
especially  in  the  arrangement  of  the  drapery,  and 
some  may  feel  inclined  to  depreciate  our  group  in 
wood  as  not  good  enough  for  the  master  himself, 
and  that  it  is,  at  best,  by  a  very  clever  pupil.  The 
naked  Child  is  thick-set,  solidly  built  and  muscular. 
In  both  figures  there  is  evidence  of  the  rapidly  in- 
creasing tendency  towards  naturalism,  towards  work- 
ing from  the  living  model  and  the  introduction  of 
portraiture  in  religious  subjects.  The  group,  as  in 
the  case  of  many  others  of  like  character,  was  at  one 
time  over  an  altar.  It  is  fully  coloured,  the  painting 
excellent  and,  happily,  in  fair  condition  ;  for  we  have 
here  an  admirable  example  of  the  method  of  colouring 
236 


I.     \N(;kl  i)K    riiK  annunciation.    IMSAN   .SCHOOI..    I  UUKTKKNIII  (  inu  k\ 

CI.USV    Ml'SRt'M,    l-AKIS 

-■      MAIioNNA       IIAI.IAN.     KOURTKKNI  II    (  l-.NIUKN 


JACOPO    DELLA    QUERCIA 

sculpture  taught  by  the  twelfth-century  monk  Theo- 
philus,  and  given  to  the  world  by  Cennino  Cennini  in 
1437,  not  long  after  the  probable  date  of  this  group. 
The  robe  of  the  Virgin  is  a  deep  rich  red,  lined  with 
green,  the  upper  drapery  and  veil  of  a  yellowish  or 
light  amber  tint,  the  hair  of  both  figures  gilded,  and 
the  orphreys  and  other  ornaments  also  gilded  and 
tooled.  The  wood  itself,  in  the  accustomed  manner, 
has  fine  linen  stretched  over  it  fixed  with  a  lacteous 
cement  upon  which  is  the  plaster  coating  for  the 
reception  of  the  colour.  Possessing  all  the  fresh  and 
delicate  features  and  the  unaffected  simplicity  of  the 
Sienese  school  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  this  group,  with  the  earlier  French  group  of 
the  Louvre,  is  alone  sufficient  to  place  sculpture  in 
wood  of  the  finest  mediaeval  period  on  a  level  with 
that  in  any  other  material  whatsoever.  The  Madonna 
of  Jacopo  della  Quercia  is  an  evidence  also  not  only 
of  his  following  of  the  Pisan  schools  of  Niccola  and 
Andrea,  and  of  Giotto,  but  also  in  common  with  other 
Tuscan  artists  of  his  time,  of  the  influence  of  the  more 
northern  Gothic  schools  of  the  Netherlands  and  of 
Burgundy,  then  dominant  everywhere.  The  Madonna 
and  Child  of  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  (No. 
5892),  again  life-size  and  of  a  somewhat  later  date,  is 
one  of  the  earliest  acquisitions  made  in  Italy  for  the 
South  Kensington  Museum  by  Sir  J.  C.  Robinson. 
He  himself,  in  the  catalogue  published  in  1862,  de- 
scribes it  as  by  a  master  unknown  of  about  1400- 1440, 
having  much  of  the  manner  of  Jacopo  della  Quercia, 
the  gesso  priming  and  painting  all  disappeared  or 
removed  (Plate  xl.). 

There  are  several  other  fine  examples  of  wood 
sculpture  by  Jacopo  della  Quercia,  or  of  his  school  in 
the  churches  and  public  institutions  of  Siena  and  the 
neighbourhood.  Amongst  them  are  a  standing  group 
of  the  Virgin    and    Child   and    some   figures   of   SS. 

237 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Peter,  Paul,  John  the  Baptist,  and  St.  Antony  in  the 
church  of  San  Martino.  They  are  all  completely 
gilded.  But  though  the  Madonna  figure  may  be  said 
to  be  in  the  style  of  that  of  the  Louvre,  or,  rather, 
of  the  Madonna  of  the  church  of  San  Petronio,  these 
figures  are  not  likely  to  be  by  the  hand  of  the  Master 
himself.  Born  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  working  during  the  first  half  of  the 
fifteenth,  the  art  of  Jacopo  della  Quercia  is  dis- 
tinguished by  its  singleness  of  purpose,  straightforward 
simplicity  and  elegant  refinement,  without  a  trace  of 
artificiality.  He  was  strongly  influenced  by  the  school 
of  Niccola  Pisano  and  the  Gothic  tradition,  follow- 
inor  no  doubt  the  methods  of  the  Flemish  and  Bur- 
gundian  masters  whose  authority  in  his  early  days 
was  everywhere  paramount.  And,  indeed,  his  style 
would  connect  him  rather  with  the  trecentists  than 
with  the  more  florid  and  overcharged  tendencies  of 
sentiment  which  characterize  the  fifteenth  century. 
But,  of  course,  all  through  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century  the  Florentine  schools  were  still  very  much 
influenced  by  Gothic  methods  however  modified  by 
the  naturalistic  feeling  which  Niccola  of  Pisa  had 
been  the  first  to  borrow  from  other  sources. 


238 


PLATE  XL 


M.U)f)\\\   A\I>  r  FIILD.     BV  JACOrO  DEI. LA  QUKKCU. 

I.OUVRK    MUSIiUM 

y-.v    ■  r, 


CHAPTER   XIII 

ON  SOME  EXAMPLES  OF  WOOD  SCULPTURE  OF  THE 
TRECENTO  AND  QUATTROCENTO  IN  ITALY 

IT  would  be  impossible  to  approach,  without  the 
greatest  diffidence,  the  task  of  attempting  to 
describe  Italian  art  in  wood  within  the  limits 
of  a  few  pages.  The  period  to  which  we  have  to  go 
for  the  best  examples  is  one  which  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  revival  of  art  in  which  Italy  played 
so  overwhelmingly  prominent  a  part.  Italian  sculpture 
in  wood  has  been  hitherto  little  known  and  little 
studied,  at  any  rate  by  English  writers.  There  are 
certain  museums,  such  as  the  Museo  Civico  of  Pisa, 
where  a  fair  amount  of  fine  examples  is  to  be  found, 
but  much  is  distributed  in  various  cathedrals  or  hidden 
away  in  village  churches  where  it  has  often  suffered 
from  neglect,  from  unskilful  restorations,  and  from 
additions  of  tawdry  drapery.  It  is  but  recently,  in 
1905,  that  a  considerable  number  of  interesting  ex- 
amples of  the  art  of  wood-carving  in  the  Abruzzi  were 
gathered  together  at  a  special  exhibition.  Contrary 
to  a  formerly  received  opinion  (it  may  be  noted  that 
Molinier,  in  his  Histoire  de  FArt,  treats  the  subject 
very  summarily,  and  confines  his  attention  almost 
entirely  to  tarsia  work),  the  art  has  always  been  popular 
in  Italy,  and  as  elsewhere  has  followed  on  the  lines  of 
the  more  important  sculptures  in  stone,  marble,  and 
bronze.  The  story  of  sculpture  in  Italy  is  evidence 
of  a  wide-reaching  effect  on  the  art  of  other  countries 

239 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

from  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance  to  its  full  develop- 
ment in  the  days  of  Michael  Angelo,  but  in  the  ex- 
amples which  will  be  selected  we  shall  find  ourselves 
in  an  atmosphere  entirely  different  from  that  in  which 
we  have  been  living  in  the  case  of  those  of  the  period 
of  Gothic  art  in  France,  in  the  Netherlands,  and  in 
other  more  northern  countries  of  Europe.  We  shall 
be  confronted  at  every  step  with  the  greatest  names  of 
the  early  Renaissance — indeed,  it  may  be  said,  with  all 
the  great  names — so  that  comparisons  with  their  work 
as  sculptors  in  other  materials — in  marble  and  stone, 
in  terra  cotta,  bronze,  and  even  in  majolica,  would  be 
constantly  arising.  To  embrace  the  subject  with  any 
completeness  would  imply  an  incursus  into  the  whole 
history  of  Italian  art  of  the  period.  It  would  involve 
such  questions  as  the  influences  exercised  by  the  study 
of  antique  models  on  the  trecento  schools,  or,  again, 
the  measure  of  inspiration  from  French  art  to  be 
accorded  to  those  of  the  quattrocento.  We  might 
have  to  discuss  the  position  of  Gothic  art  in  Italy, 
how  far  it  was  congenial  to  the  character  of  the  people, 
and  what  were  its  relations  to  the  older  systems  in 
the  work  of  Niccola,  of  Giovanni,  and  of  Andrea  Pisani, 
who  added  to  it  the  poetical  naturalism  which  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  great  change  which  we  know 
under  the  name  of  Renaissance.  For,  as  in  this 
book  we  are  dealing  almost  exclusively  with  Gothic 
art,  we  must  remember  that  the  early  Renaissance 
was  but  a  development  of  Gothic  feeling,  passing  by 
slow  degrees  into  an  appreciation  of  humanism  and 
realism. 

Owing  to  the  quantity  of  available  matter  and  to 
the  impossibility  of  treating  in  one  chapter  the  whole 
subject  of  wood  sculpture  in  Italy,  it  is  necessary  to 
make  a  selection,  and  to  confine  attention  for  the  most 
part  to  certain  figure  work  belonging  to  the  trecento 
and  quattrocento  schools  of  Pisa,  Florence,  and  Siena. 
240 


EARLY    ITALIAN 

These  are  life-sized  statues  representing  the  Annuncia- 
tion by  means  of  detached  figures  of  the  Virgin  Mary 
and  the  archangel  Gabriel.  In  their  general  character 
they  find  no  parallel  elsewhere,  and  for  poetic  beauty 
and  unaffected  naturalism  many  of  them  are  un- 
surpassed in  the  history  of  mediaeval  carvings  in  any 
other  countries.  They  may  indeed  claim  to  rank  as 
great  sculpture,  and  in  addition  combine  the  arts  of 
sculptors  and  painters  of  the  highest  rank.  Some 
few  other  examples  of  figure  work  of  the  same  period 
will  also  be  noted,  and,  for  the  rest,  the  crucifixes  and 
Madonnas  of  Italian  origin  have  already  been  included 
in  the  section  devoted  to  that  part  of  our  subject.  In 
earlier  days  and  throughout  the  Carlovingian  period, 
art  in  Italy  remained  steadfastly  attached  to  Byzantine 
methods  and  traditions,  and  was  always  coy  of  the 
influence  of  the  north  and  consequently  of  Gothic 
ideas.  Wood  sculpture  was  especially  cultivated  in 
the  monasteries  of  the  south  of  the  peninsula  and 
some  ancient  doors  of  the  twelfth  century,  besides 
the  well-known  ones  of  Santa  Sabina  still  exist :  for 
example,  those  carved  with  scenes  in  the  life  of  the 
Virgin  of  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  in  Cellis  at 
Carsoli,  the  similar  ones  of  San  Pietro,  Alba  Fucense, 
and  the  panels  with  like  scenes  of  Sta.  Maria  Maggiore 
at  Alatri.  In  Romanesque  times  sculpture  in  wood  had 
produced  also  in  Tuscany  one  of  its  finest  efforts — 
the  '  Deposition '  of  the  cathedral  of  Volterra,  already 
noticed.  The  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  possesses 
four  interesting  columns  (No.  269,  1886)  each  about  eight 
feet  high,  which  may  have  been  supports  of  a  pulpit, 
or  as  the  museum  label  suggests,  for  organs.  The 
capitals  are  carved  with  foliage,  amongst  which  are 
human  and  animal  figures  :  rude  work  after  decidedly 
oriental  models,  the  surfaces  of  the  wood  flat,  so  that 
the  carving  is  in  the  fashion  of  entaille  or  champlevd. 
They  are  described  as  south  Italian  work  of  the 
Q  241 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

thirteenth  century,  but  the  fashion  and  designs  must 
surely  be  of  at  least  a  hundred  years  earlier. 

Of  the  oldest  Gothic  work  in  wood,  little  is  known. 
Vasari,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  was  the  first  to  charac- 
terize the  great  change  in  the  systems  of  art  of  which 
the  earliest  manifestations  were  made  more  than  three 
hundred  years  before  his  time  under  the  influence  of 
Niccola  Pisano.  That  influence  marks  the  first  great 
movement  in  the  rebirth  of  the  plastic  arts.  It  was, 
in  the  terms  which  Vasari  was  the  first  to  apply,  the 
Rinascita,  the  Rinascimento,  the  Resorghnento,  the 
Renaissance,  as  is  now  the  accepted  expression.  It 
was  the  rejuvenation  of  taste,  and  the  appreciation  in 
the  human  mind  of  the  study  of  the  antique ;  the 
awakening  of  ideas  which  had  long  remained  dormant 
and  stagnant  throughout  the  protracted  period  of 
ignorance  which  we  call  the  dark  ages.  Under  the 
restraints  of  Byzantine  mannerisms,  sculpture  had 
suffered  more  than  any  other  expression  of  art,  and 
had  fallen  very  low  indeed.  By  a  return  to  classical 
principles,  and  by  a  systematic  study  of  the  antique, 
it  was  destined  to  differentiate  itself  from  the  almost 
wildly  independent  system  by  which  the  purely  Gothic 
is  characterized.  The  picturesque  and  the  natural 
took  the  place  of  the  ideal  which  had  so  long  ex- 
clusively prevailed,  borrowing  the  classical  formulae 
and  adapting  them  to  Christian  religious  feeling.  The 
great  name  which  we  associate  with  these  beginnings 
in  the  middle  and  second  half  of  the  thirteenth  century 
is  that  of  Niccola  of  Pisa,  whom  we  know  best  perhaps 
by  his  pulpit  of  the  cathedral  of  Siena,  or  by  the  bas- 
reliefs  of  that  of  Lucca,  among  so  many  more  of  his 
marvellous  productions.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that 
he  derived  his  inspiration  from  the  old  Christian 
sarcophagi  rather  than  direct  from  classical  antiquity, 
for  the  bas-reliefs  of  the  Gothic  pulpit  of  the  Baptistery 
of  Pisa  are  obvious  imitations  of  these.  And  it  may 
242 


TUSCAN    SCULPTURE 

be  that  the  great  sculptures  of  Chartres,  of  Paris,  of 
Amiens,  or  of  Strassburg,  are  entitled  to  an  earlier 
date.  We  shall  find  their  influence  in  such  figures  as 
the  angel  from  the  Timbal  collection  in  the  Cluny 
Museum,  which  will  presently  be  noticed.  However 
this  may  be,  so  far  as  our  immediate  subject  is  con- 
cerned, Italian  sculpture  before  the  impulse  given  to 
it  by  Niccola  calls  for  little  consideration.  Giovanni, 
his  son  and  pupil,  of  whom  is  recorded  on  the  pulpit 
of  Pisa,  '  sciilpens  in  petro,  ligno  auro,  carries  us  into 
the  trecento  period.  Another  of  the  same  patronymic, 
perhaps  even  a  greater  artist  than  his  master  Giovanni, 
is  the  famous  bronzist,  maker  of  the  first  great  gates 
of  the  Baptistery  of  Florence,  and  we  have  already 
noticed  a  Madonna  in  wood  which  is  probably  his 
work.  Finally,  and  still  of  the  trecento,  we  have  Nino 
Pisano,  son  of  Andrea,  to  whom  and  to  his  school  we 
owe  the  beautiful  Annunciation  figures  that  will 
presently  occupy  our  attention.  Andrea  Pisano  has 
been  called  the  creator  of  the  Florentine  school  of 
sculpture.  Nino  worked  with  him,  and  after  his 
father's  death  took  his  place  as  architect  of  the  cathe- 
dral of  Orvieto.  The  art  of  sculpture  in  wood  in 
Romanesque  times  had  probably  occupied  no  impor- 
tant position,  though  we  possess  such  interesting 
examples  as  the  *  Deposition  '  of  Volterra,  but  towards 
the  middle  of  the  trecento  it  had  become  important 
and  popular,  and  in  1349  the  Society  of  St.  Luke  had 
founded  at  Florence  special  schools  under  its  protec- 
tion. 

Tuscan  sculpture,  then,  begins  with  Niccola  Pisano, 
at  a  time  when  the  increasing  tranquillity  and 
prosperity  of  the  country  found  people  capable  of 
appreciating  ideas  of  refinement  and  nobility  of  ex- 
pression. The  turn  of  Siena  was  not  to  be  till  some- 
what later,  while  that  of  Florence,  destined  to  be 
greatest  of  all.  was  to  await  for  the  culminating  point 

243 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

of  its  distinction  in  the  arts,  the  full  quattrocento — 
the  fifteenth  century.  For  it  was  not  until  the  close 
of  the  fourteenth  that  the  great  names  appear  of 
Donatello,  of  Brunelleschi,  of  Desiderio  da  Settignano, 
or  of  Ghiberti,  all  of  whom  did  so  much  to  spread 
pictorial  fashions  in  sculpture,  and  all  of  whom — if,  as 
is  probable,  we  may  include  the  last  named — with  such 
another  famous  sculptor  as  Jacopo  della  Quercia  of 
Siena,  render  illustrious  the  art  of  wood-carving.  Our 
space  will  not  permit  us  to  follow  the  work  of  every 
artist  in  detail.  If  it  did  so,  we  should  find  in  the 
company  of  those  just  named  some  others  hardly  less 
distinguished.  We  should  be  able  to  illustrate  by 
existing  examples  the  work  of  Matteo  Civitali,  of 
Andrea  and  Simone  Ferrucci,  Baccio  da  Montelupo, 
Niccolo  Baroncelli,  Michelozzo,  Andrea  della  Robbia, 
Benedetto  da  Majano,  Neroccio,  Giuliano  da  Sangallo, 
Nanni  Unghero,  Giacomo  Cozzarelli,  II  Vecchietta, 
Caradosso,  the  Barili,  Leonardo  del  Tasso,  Andrea 
Sansovino,  and  Andrea  del  Verrocchio,  for  the  most 
part  Florentine  of  the  fifteenth  and  early  sixteenth 
century,  and  of  others  of  lesser  note.  There  are,  of 
course,  amongst  these,  many  carvers  of  crucifixes,  and 
of  Madonnas  there  is  a  wealth  also.  Baccio  da  Monte- 
lupo's  fine  crucifix,  made  for  the  monks  of  San  Marco, 
still  exists  in  their  refectory.  Many  others  made  by 
him  and  mentioned  by  Vasari  cannot  now  be  traced. 
From  Vasari  we  learn  that  Margaritone  of  Arezzo 
(i 236-1313)  carved  a  large  crucifix  in  wood  for  the 
Santa,  which  was  '  painted  in  the  Greek  manner,'  and 
four  other  figures  in  the  parish  church  of  Arezzo,  and 
even  Giotto  is  credited  by  tradition  with  one  in  the 
church  of  Santa  Maria  Sopra  Minerva,  in  Rome. 
Finally,  Vasari  himself,  followed  by  others,  has  attri- 
buted a  crucifix  in  wood,  in  the  Santo  Spirito,  Florence, 
as  a  youthful  work  of  Michael  Angelo.  At  Ferrara,  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  wood  sculpture  was  represented 
244 


SCHOOL    OF    NINO    PISANO 

by  Arrigo  da  Brabant,  and  by  a  numerous  colony  of 
German,  Flemish,  and  French  artists.  At  Modena 
we  find  such  names  as  da  Basio,  da  Lendmara,  and 
the  Canozzi.  It  would  seem  that  in  certain  districts, 
as  in  the  Abruzzi  for  instance,  owing  no  doubt  to 
the  considerable  number  of  religious  houses  which 
flourished  there  from  the  twelfth  to  the  sixteenth 
century,  there  was  great  activity  in  the  art  of  wood- 
carving.  Examples  of  figure  work  of  considerable 
merit  are  still  numerous  in  the  churches  at  Chieti  and 
at  Aquila.  Many  were  shown  at  the  exhibition  of  the 
art  of  the  Abruzzi  in  1905. 

The  resuscitation  of  the  sculptural  arts  in  Italy 
at  the  time  of  the  great  awakening  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  afterwards,  was  aided  by  several 
circumstances.  The  new  spirit  ran  parallel  with 
that  of  the  revival  of  literature  in  the  age  of  Dante, 
with  a  popular  impulse  towards  mysticism  which 
had  been  fostered  by  the  teaching  of  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  with  general  prosperity  and  increasing 
luxury,  and  with  the  more  free  study  and  observation 
of  nature,  leading  to  a  greater  refinement  of  aesthetic 
ideals,  to  which  reference  has  already  several  times 
here  been  made.  About  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century  the  new  ideas  had  triumphed  all  along  the 
line.  We  see  this  exemplified  in  the  charming 
Annunciation  figures  of  the  school  of  Nino  Pisano. 
We  may  reasonably  assume  that  some  of  these  delicate 
works,  so  full  of  poetic  feeling,  are  by  Nino  himself. 
Most  admirable  among  them  are  those  of  the  museums 
of  Pisa  and  of  the  Cluny  of  Paris :  most  charming  of 
all,  those  which  the  museum  of  Lyon  was  so  for- 
tunate as  to  procure.  We  shall  not  stay  to  inquire 
how  far  such  things  as  these  imply  a  triumph  of 
humanism  over  the  symbolism  and  mystical  ideas 
which  had  hitherto  governed  art  in  the  church,  and 
whether   religious    fervour    and    devotion    suffered    in 

245 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

consequence.  We  shall  take  these  beautiful  Madonnas 
and  groups  as  we  find  them,  purely  as  works  of  art : 
sweet-smiling  women  of  the  time,  in  the  very  garments 
of  the  age,  youthful  attendants  or  messengers  sugges- 
tive of  the  Court,  babes  with  the  chubby  features  and 
plump  soft  limbs  that  we  associate  with  them.  It 
must  be  left  to  individual  feeling  to  discriminate 
between  the  devotional  sentiment  and  an  appeal  to  the 
sensual  and  the  materialist.  The  time  was  fast 
approaching  when  the  most  sacred  figures  were  used  as 
a  mere  pretext  for  the  portraits  of  anything  but  saintly 
people,  and  a  classically  draped  figure  did  duty  as  this 
or  that  holy  personage.  What  is  unfortunately  impos- 
sible is  to  give  in  our  monotone  illustrations  an  idea  of 
the  polychrome  decoration  in  view  of  which  these 
figures  were  first  of  all  prepared  by  the  sculptor. 
Allowances  must  be  made,  for  here  the  photograph 
fails.  In  thus  confining  our  attention  for  the  most 
part  to  a  certain  class  of  figures  we  have  also  to  leave 
on  one  side  the  glorious  choir  and  stall  work  with 
which  the  churches  of  Italy  abound.  It  would  be 
pleasant  at  least  to  notice  such  Gothic  work  as  that  of 
Santa  Maria  dei  Frari  at  Venice,  and,  even  if  somewhat 
later  than  our  limits  in  date,  the  charm  and  perfection 
of  the  choir  of  San  Pietro,  Perugia,  or  the  exquisite 
carving  in  walnut  of  the  church  of  St.  Severinus  at 
Naples.  But  it  would  be  difficult  to  consider  the 
subject  apart  from  that  of  the  art  of  colouring  and 
inlaying  wood  which  we  call  tarsia  or  even  certosina 
work,  in  which  Benedetto  da  Majano,  Giovanni  da 
Verona,  Damiani  da  Bergamo,  and  Davido  da  Pistoja 
are,  among  many  others,  cited  by  Vasari. 

In  Tuscany  especially,  in  Siena  and  Pisa,  it  became 
the  custom,  about  the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  to  represent  the  Annunciation  by  the  two 
figures  of  the  Virgin  and  the  angel  Gabriel,  which 
were  not  necessarily  grouped  together,  but  placed  on 
246 


PLATE   Ml 


\NNU\C1  \l  ION    ni;URKS.     ATlKIBl'IKIt   TO   NINO    I'l.S.Wri.     lOt 'K  II.KN  I  II    (KN  H'RN 

MUSl-,c>   CIVICO,    IISA 
I'AC.K    248 


SCHOOL    OF    NINO    PISANO 

consoles  as  separate  statues.  It  would  appear  to  have 
been  an  entirely  new  idea,  corresponding  with  nothing 
else  in  the  plastic  arts  of  any  country,  and,  especially 
also  in  their  treatment,  they  are  examples  of  an  art  of 
which  little,  besides  themselves,  remains.  In  general 
they  indicate  the  following  of  the  early  school  of 
Giovanni  da  Pisa,  and  the  motive  and  method  of  ex- 
pression undoubtedly  speedily  became  favourite  ones. 
It  is,  however,  especially  to  the  influence  of  Nino 
Pisano,  son  of  Andrea,  who — as  we  know  only  the  date 
of  his  death  in  1368 — worked  probably  for  the  most 
part  throughout  the  second  quarter  of  the  trecento,  that 
we  owe  the  chief  impulse  in  the  carving  of  the  pairs  of 
Annunciation  figures,  of  which  some  amongst  the  most 
important  will  now  be  cited.  They  are,  with  one 
exception,  life  or  nearly  life-size  figures  of  the  same 
general  type.  The  Virgin  is  represented  standing, 
simply  clad,  usually  with  a  prayer-book  in  her  hand, 
as  if  disturbed  by  the  summons  of  the  angel  :  the 
heavenly  messenger  also  standing,  one  hand  raised  to 
call  attention,  the  mouth  open  as  in  the  act  of  speaking. 
In  accordance  with  the  universal  practice  in  sculpture 
of  the  period,  they  are  fully  coloured.  The  question 
how  far  they  are  from  Nino's  own  hand,  and  how  far 
they  correspond  with  known  Madonna  figures  by  him, 
is  not  one  for  which  much  space  can  now  be  found. 
It  may,  perhaps,  after  all,  suffice  to  say  that  the  best 
among  them  are  strongly  influenced  by  him,  and  that 
they  are  of  his  school.  We  have  no  certain  know- 
ledge that  Nino  himself  worked  in  wood,  though  if  we 
consider  the  customs  of  the  time  and  the  roll  of  sculp- 
tors already  cited,  it  is  hardly  likely  that  at  one  time 
or  other  in  his  career  every  great  sculptor  would  not 
have  exercised  his  genius  in  this  material ;  at  any  rate, 
up  to  the  time — perhaps  late  in  the  fifteenth  centuiy — 
when,  under  the  new  system  of  art,  wood  sculpture 
would  have  given  place  entirely  to  marble.     The  most 

247 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

enlightening  reference  that  can  be  made  towards 
establishing  Nino's  participation  in  at  least  the  group 
of  the  Pisa  Museum,  with  which  others  are  closely 
connected,  is  a  comparison  with  the  figures  in  marble 
of  the  Saltarelli  monument  in  the  church  of  Santa 
Caterina  at  Pisa.  These  have  always  been  considered 
as  the  finest  creations  of  this  refined  and  sympathetic 
master.  The  tomb  itself  of  the  archbishop  is  his 
greatest  work,  and  according  to  Vasari  was  executed 
about  the  year  1370.  But  Nino  was  then  no  longer 
living,  and  the  more  correct  date  is  1342.  The 
Madonna  at  the  top  has  considerable  relationship  with 
the  same  artist's  Madonna  of  Santa  Maria  Novella. 
In  the  chapel  of  the  Rosary  in  that  church  are 
other  two  Annunciation  figures  closely  identical  with 
the  pair  of  the  Museo  Civico.  Supino,  in  his  Arte 
Pisaiia,  says  they  are  without  doubt  by  the  same 
hand,  and  illustrates  them  side  by  side.  The  style  is, 
indeed,  similar,  especially  in  the  figure  of  the  Virgin, 
the  drapery  alike  in  arrangement  and  feeling. 

In  these  Annunciation  figures  and  Madonnas  we 
find  an  entirely  new  type  of  the  Virgin.  It  is  the  un- 
affected sweet  girl — almost  a  schoolgirl — who  receives 
the  salutation  of  the  angel.  Confining  ourselves  to  the 
wood  examples,  I  can  see  nothing  that  would  justify 
the  suggestion  of  the  French  critic,  M.  Michel,  that 
Nino  was  inspired  in  any  way  by  the  small  French 
groups  in  ivory  of  the  subject,  and  that  he  modified 
these  and  enlarged  them  in  marble  and  wood.  Their 
striking  characteristic  is  their  girlishness.  On  the 
other  hand  the  analogies  with  such  sculptures  as  those 
of  Reims  or  Chartres  is  marked,  in  the  attitude,  the 
expression,  the  quite  classical  draperies,  and  the  general 
sentiment  of  the  Gabriel  of  the  Cluny  Museum  and 
the  others  with  which  it  is  related.  What  is  so  notice- 
able in  nearly  all  the  figures  of  this  category  is  the 
intense  emotional  feeling,  the  full  story  told  by  two 
248 


ANNUNCIATION    FIGURES 

separate  figures  without  any  scenic  adjuncts,  the 
dramatic  aspect,  the  angel  in  the  act  of  speaking,  the 
Virgin  answering  as  it  were — or,  rather,  expressing  by 
her  attitude,  by  her  whole  demeanour,  her  carriage, 
features,  even  such  a  detail  as  the  book  of  prayers  in 
her  hand,  as  if  hastily  closed — all  that  is  passing  in 
her  mind.  Very  simple,  yet  elegant,  is  the  attitude  in 
which  she  stands,  the  shape  of  the  head  and  transcript 
of  the  features  expressive  of  almost  extreme  youth, 
the  costume  unusual  yet  most  refined  in  its  lines  of 
simple  drapery  falling  lightly,  and  covering  the  form 
down  to  the  feet.  There  is  little  or  none  of  the  undu- 
lating Gothic  bend  of  French  fourteenth-century  work, 
except,  perhaps,  and  that  but  slightly,  in  the  Gabriel 
of  the  Cluny  and  the  Madonna  of  the  Museo  Civico. 
The  style  of  costume  of  such  figures  as  the  Madonnas 
of  the  Lyon,  Pisa,  or  Asciano  groups  is  peculiar,  in 
the  long  straight  falling  robe,  without  waistband  or 
girdle,  and  with  very  few  straight  folds  :  perfectly  plain, 
and  with  plain  tight  sleeves :  no  ornaments  or  over- 
mantle,  no  veil,  and  the  hair  very  neatly  arranged.  If 
other  influences  are  to  be  traced,  they  would  seem  to 
be  from  the  refined  idealism,  the  almost  enervated 
grace  of  Giottesque  traditions,  with  at  the  same  time 
a  suggestion  of  realism  and  portrait-like  fidelity  to 
nature.  For  these  figures  are  still  truly  Gothic.  The 
reproductions  given  here  will  dispense  with  more  than 
general  descriptions.  The  photographs  must  speak 
for  themselves,  regretting  only  that  the  charm  of  the 
original  colouring  must  be  left  to  the  imagination. 
Yet  this  colouring  is  of  so  great  importance  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  estimate  the  true  value  of  the  art 
from  monochrome  reproductions.  These  figures  repre- 
sent, indeed,  sculpture  painted,  or  paintings  differing 
from  those  on  plane  surfaces,  and  if  we  could  imagine 
them  as  they  left  the  hands  of  their  creator,  we 
should  find  them  to  be  the  work  of  great  artists  in 

249 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

both  lines  of  art.  It  is  true  that  the  surface  of 
the  sculptured  wood  was  destined  entirely  to  dis- 
appear, yet  it  does  not  follow  that  sculpture  takes 
a  secondary  place.  The  colouring  throughout  of 
the  faces  and  hands,  and  of  the  patterns  and  orna- 
mentations of  the  drapery,  was  of  extraordinary 
delicacy,  the  former  painted  with  a  light  carnation,  the 
cheeks  rose-tinted,  the  lips  deepened  with  cinnabar, 
the  draperies  richly  ornamented  with  gilded  orphreys 
and  edgings,  sometimes  raised  with  impasto  and  tool- 
ings. In  short,  even  in  their  present  condition,  except  in 
those  cases  where  in  later  times  they  have  been  wholly 
bedaubed  with  a  uniform  colour,  these  figures,  and 
other  French  and  Italian  madonnas  described  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  are  amongst  the  most  distinctive  re- 
maining of  the  methods  taught  by  Theophilus  and 
Cennini. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  sculpture 
had  not  attained  a  high  position  and  was  not  held  in 
great  esteem  in  Florence.  Nino  Pisano  therefore,  and 
his  brother  Tommaso,  also  a  sculptor,  but  of  whose  work 
there  is  nothing  of  importance,  had  installed  themselves 
at  Pisa  and  later  on  at  Orvieto.  Among  the  Annun- 
ciation figures  there  are  three  which  are  usually 
attributed  to  Nino  himself.  They  are  the  beautiful 
pair  in  the  museum  of  Lyon,  and  a  figure  of  the  arch- 
angel— the  companion  figure  is  missing — in  the  Museo 
Civico  of  Pisa.  We  may  take  first  the  Annunciation 
figure,  and  the  accompanying  angel,  of  the  Lyon 
collection,  both  of  which  present  many  points  of  interest 
and  originality  entirely  different  from  any  of  the  other 
groups,  and  indeed  from  any  other  known  sculpture. 
The  group  appears  to  have  been  acquired  in  1887  ;  it  is 
said,  from  the  church  of  Santa  Caterina.  The  figures 
measure  each  almost  five  feet  in  height,  are  fully 
coloured,  and  preserve  to  a  great  degree  the  original 
colouring.  The  charming  head  of  the  Virgin,  youth- 
250 


PLATE  XLII 


ANNUNCIATION    FIGURES.     PISAN   SCHOOL.     FOURTEENTH   CENTURY 

LVON    MUSEUM 
PAGE   150 


ANNUNCIATION    FIGURES 

ful  as  a  girl  of  sixteen,  is  turned  to  right  and  slightly 
inclined  over  the  shoulder,  the  face  bearing  a  listening 
expression  of  anticipation.  She  wears  a  long  loose 
robe  without  any  waistband  or  girdle.  An  unusual 
peculiarity  is  that  the  arms  of  the  figure — one  is  un- 
fortunately broken  and  partly  missing — are  jointed  and 
movable,  as  in  a  lay  figure.  This,  it  has  been  thought, 
was  to  facilitate  the  clothing  with  real  stuffs.  Certainly 
the  dress,  as  it  is,  suggests  an  under-garment  or  negligd, 
which  with  great  skill  indicates  the  full  form  beneath. 
Yet  such  a  complete  figure,  so  elaborately  decorated  a 
dress,  could  not  have  been  intended  to  be  ignominiously 
concealed  by  the  addition  of  draperies.  Admitting  the 
possibility  of  a  mantle  being  added,  it  is  in  itself  the 
finished  production  not  only  of  a  great  sculptor  but 
also  of  a  great  painter.  It  would  be  impossible  not  to 
recognize  the  master  hand  in  the  consummate  treat- 
ment of  the  carnations  of  the  face  and  hands,  and  in 
the  rich  decoration  of  the  dress.  The  Virgin  of  the 
Annunciation  in  the  Municipal  Museum — at  one  time 
in  the  convent  of  St.  Domenico,  has  much  in  common 
with  that  of  Lyon.  It  is  somewhat  taller,  measuring 
quite  five  feet  six  inches  in  height,  and  unfortunately 
has  at  some  later  time  been  completely  bedaubed  with 
a  new  red  colour.  The  modelling  of  the  head,  the 
treatment  of  the  hair,  and  the  style  generally,  are 
strikingly  similar  to  the  marble  Madonna  by  Nino  in 
the  museum  of  Orvieto.  The  figure  has  the  same 
feeling  as  that  of  Lyon,  a  like  elegance  of  pose,  and 
similar  proportions,  though  the  head  is  older  and  not 
nearly  so  fascinating  in  expression.  Possibly  the 
missing  angel  is  the  one  now  in  the  museum  of  the 
Louvre,  to  which  also  is  wanting  the  accompanying 
Madonna.  The  arms  are  again  jointed  and  movable. 
The  Pisa  Museum  also  possesses  a  complete  and  more 
dramatic  group,  attributed  to  the  master  of  the  works 
just  mentioned.     The  figures  measure,  respectively,  five 

251 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

feet  nine,  and  five  feet  six  in  height,  and  though  there 
are  traces  of  the  original  coloration  it  is  now  almost 
entirely  hidden  beneath  a  coat  of  dirty  white  paint. 
Undoubtedly  the  original  face  tints,  and  the  patterns 
and  other  decorations  of  the  simple  drapery  which  falls 
in  graceful  folds  to  the  feet,  was  as  rich  as  in  the  Lyon 
example.  The  hair,  as  was  the  universal  practice, 
was  gilded.  The  attitudes  have  the  French  feeling  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  with  the  Gothic  bend  in  the 
figure  of  the  Virgin  which  was  so  common  at  that 
period,  but  is  here  not  at  all  exaggerated.  Again  these 
figures  invite  comparison  with  those  in  the  chapel  of 
the  church  of  Santa  Caterina,  with  the  Madonna  of 
Santa  Maria  della  Spina  and  others  by  Nino,  and  by 
his  father,  whose  art  he  continued. 

We  may  take  next  the  angel  of  the  Cluny  Museum 
at  Paris,  at  one  time  in  the  Timbal  collection. 
Closely  related,  perhaps,  especially  in  the  character 
of  the  head,  to  the  Pisan  angel  last  noted,  it  has 
perhaps  more  affinity  still  with  the  marble  angel  of 
Santa  Caterina.  Nor  can  we  help  thinking  of  the 
statuary  of  Chartres.  With  regard  to  the  connexion 
of  any  of  these  figures — not  excepting  those  of  Lyon 
— with  Nino  Pisano  himself,  it  would  be  hazardous 
indeed  to  express  a  decided  opinion.  The  most  that 
can  be  said  is  that  they  must  have  been  executed 
under  his  immediate  influence,  and  that,  if  by  one  of 
his  most  talented  followers,  there  may  have  been  added 
to  the  style  of  the  master  other  graceful  motives 
which,  some  may  think,  would  have  contributed  to  his 
own  fame.  The  group  of  the  museum  of  Orvieto  is  of 
another  type  which  has  several  interesting  features. 
As  it  is  not  illustrated  here,  it  will  suffice  to  remark 
the  long  oval  head  with  high  forehead  of  the  Virgin, 
the  curious  way  in  which  the  angel  holds  up  a  fold  of 
his  mantle,  his  mild  and  sedate  expression,  and  the 
mouth  not  open  in  the  act  of  speaking.  It  is  the  type 
252 


PLATE  XLllI 


ANNUNCIATION    Fir.URFS.     PISAN   SCHOOL.     FOURTEENTH   CENTURY 

UOUVKK  MUSKUM 
PACE  ?54 


ANNUNCIATION    FIGURES 

found  frequently  on  the  facade  of  the  cathedral  of 
Orvieto.  There  are  other  Annunciation  figures  and 
other  statues  in  wood  in  the  Pisan  Museum,  evidences 
of  the  long-continued  influence  of  the  school  of  Nino 
throughout  the  fourteenth  century,  and  until  the  Pisan 
school  itself  fell  into  decadence  and  that  of  Florence 
became  flourishing.  Sometimes  there  is  a  reminiscence 
of  the  thirteenth  century  in  the  simple  straight-folded 
drapery  and  of  the  influence  of  the  school  of  Siena. 
The  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  has  an  interesting 
figure  of  the  angel  of  an  Annunciation  group, 
standing  six  feet  high,  of  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
or  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  was 
acquired  in  Florence  as  long  ago  as  1861,  and  might 
almost  be  the  pendant  of  the  Annunciation  Virgin, 
formerly  in  the  Goldschmidt  collection  of  the  Louvre. 
Sir  J.  C.  Robinson's  catalogue  of  1862  states  that  both 
this  and  the  companion  figure  had,  it  was  said,  been 
recently  sold,  for  some  unaccountable  reason  to  a 
country  priest  who  took  them  to  his  own  parish 
church.  Here,  being  found  too  tall  for  the  niche  for 
which  they  were  destined,  the  statue  of  the  Virgin  was 
summarily  shortened  by  several  inches,  and  attempts 
made  to  convert  the  Angel  into  another  Virgin. 
Resold  to  a  Florentine  Jew,  Robinson  acquired  the 
Gabriel  for  fifty  francs.  It  is  now  entirely  denuded  of 
the  original  colouring.  The  Louvre  possesses  also  a 
complete  Annunciation  pair,  coming  from  the  Bardini 
collection,  which  has  some  affinity  with  the  figures  of 
the  Lyon  Museum,  and  at  Pescia  there  is  the  so-called 
Madonna  dell'  Acquavino,  probably  of  Nino's  atelier. 
It  is  figured  by  Stiavelli,  who  attributes  it  to  Matteo 
Civitali,  in  his  LArte  in  Val  di  Nievole. 

Of  the  Florentine  and  Sienese  schools  are  other 
Annunciation  figures  after  the  Pisan  model.  Foremost 
among  them  all  is  the  group  of  the  church  of  San 
Francesco    at    Asciano,    for   here    the    figure   of  the 

253 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Virgin  in  its  charming  simplicity  is  sweetest  above  any 
of  this  type  of  Madonnas.  Her  demeanour  is  not  that  to 
which  we  are  accustomed  in  most  of  the  others.  There 
is  movement  in  her  attitude  as  she  stands  as  if  enter- 
ing a  room,  one  hand  upraised  in  astonishment  at  the 
apparition  which  meets  her  eyes.  It  is  again  an 
instance  of  a  whole  dramatic  story  told  by  two  simple 
figures  without  any  scenic  adjuncts.  The  sentiment 
differs  from  that  ordinarily  expressed.  It  is  not  one 
of  humility  and  resignation,  but  rather  of  the  youth- 
ful face  lit  up  with  glad  surprise.  The  position  of  the 
gracefully  executed  hands  of  the  figures  is  most 
expressive,  both  of  the  delivery  of  the  message  and  of 
its  reception.  The  original  colouring  is  almost  intact, 
and  charmingly  delicate  are  the  carnations,  and  the 
hair  gilded  as  usual.  The  angel  wears  a  white  alb 
with  apparels  and  a  stole  over  the  left  shoulder,  lightly 
knotted  under  his  right  arm,  the  Virgin  a  red  and 
green  dress  with  a  gold  girdle.  Unfortunately  his 
face  has  been  repainted.  Schubring  thinks  these  two 
childlike  figures  to  be  the  work  of  Martino  di  Barto- 
lommeo  of  Siena  who  is  credited,  on  account  of  the 
inscription  on  the  base,  with  an  Annunciation  pair  in 
the  Collegiate  Church  of  San  Gemignano.  But  we 
know  nothing  of  him  as  a  sculptor,  and,  in  any  case, 
nothing  could  be  more  dissimilar  in  style  than  these 
fifteenth-century  figures  of  Asciano  which  have  all  the 
Gothic  feeling  and  grace  of  the  fourteenth  century  or 
even  earlier,  and  the  possibly  elegant  and  classical,  but 
almost  pagan  group  of  San  Gemignano.  The  Annun- 
ciation pair  of  the  church  of  Corpus  Domini, 
Montalcino,  of  the  Siena  school  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  though  not  without  defects,  and  the  far  finer 
pair  of  the  Abbey  Church  of  Sant'  Antonio,  at  the  same 
place,  are  of  interest  amongst  the  series.  The  first  two 
bear  inscriptions  stating  that  they  were  made  for  the 
shoemakers'  guild  in  1368  and  1370. 

254 


PLATE    XLlll 


I      Wi.l.l.   ul     AN    A\.\L\(  lAI  ID.N    <.I«)LI'.      MAI. IAN.       J.    AKlllW'lKI.    MM  HAM.      IKI.Ni   II 
l-OUKTKKNTH   CXN'TURY.     viciokia  anij  ai.bbu 
|'A<;k  7;i 


ANNUNCIATION    FIGURES 

We  come  now  to  a  smaller  and  highly  interesting 
group  in  the  museum  of  Berlin  of  an  entirely  different 
character  from  those  we  have  hitherto  been  consider- 
ing (Plate  XLV.).  It  is  the  product  of  the  mixture  of 
the  Pisan  and  Sienese  and  Florentine  schools,  of  an 
art  which  has  profited  by  many  influences,  and  carries 
us  into  the  fifteenth  century,  while  preserving  the 
Gothic  feeling  and  much  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  preceding  one.  The  two  figures,  measuring  each 
about  eighteen  inches  in  height,  are  clearly — and 
this  is  most  noticeable  in  that  of  the  angel — due  to  the 
school  of  Nino  Pisano,  though  hardly  to  be  immedi- 
ately connected  with  one  of  his  pupils.  The  name  of 
Tommaso,  brother  of  Nino,  might  even  be  mentioned. 
Differing  from  most  of  the  others  of  this  class  of  the 
subject  the  Virgin  is  seated,  the  angel  kneels  on  one 
knee,  the  right  hand  upraised,  as  he  delivers  his 
message.  Her  attitude  is  as  if  the  apparition  were  a 
sudden  one  disturbing  her  reading,  and  she  puts  down 
her  book  on  her  knee  and  waits  expectantly.  The 
angel  is  half  in  profile,  the  open  hand  raised  to  call 
attention,  not  perhaps,  as  some  think,  holding  at 
one  time  a  lily  now  missing.  Yet  there  is  evidence  of 
inspiration  by  the  trecento  schools  of  painting,  and 
comparisons  may  also  be  made  with  many  sculptures 
of  that  period  such  as  the  Annunciation  of  the 
tabernacle  of  Orcagna  or  the  figures  of  the  fac^ade  of 
Orvieto.  But  it  would  be  impossible  to  ascribe  the 
group  definitely  either  to  the  school  of  Siena,  which 
was  an  offshoot  of  the  Pisan,  or  of  Florence,  which 
followed  this.  Some  hold  one  opinion,  some  another  : 
some  would  refer  it  back  to  the  mid-fourteenth,  others 
place  it  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  ;  some  even 
give  it  to  a  more  northern  school,  perhaps  Piedmontese. 
On  the  whole,  we  may  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
is  the  work  of  a  Florentine  sculptor  strongly  influenced 
by  Ghiberti,  and  a  follower  of  the  Pisan  school  of  Nino  ; 

255 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

and  although  at  first  sight  one  might  be  inclined  to  give 
it  an  earlier  origin,  the  influences  discernible,  which  are 
very  various,  lead  us  to  decide  rather  on  the  early  part 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  A  seated  Madonna  in  wood, 
fully  painted,  of  unusual  type,  of  the  Siena  school  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  in  the  church  of  Sant'  Agostino, 
has  analogies  with  the  drapery  of  the  Berlin  figure. 
The  Child,  in  this  group  dressed  in  a  belted  frock, 
stands  in  a  half-running  attitude  on  His  mother's  lap, 
His  back  turned  to  the  spectator  as  He  plays  affection- 
ately, one  hand  on  her  neck. 

It  is  necessary  to  pass  rapidly  over  a  few 
amongst  a  large  number  of  Italian  sculptures  of 
the  fifteenth  century  which  might  be  cited.  The 
first  two  are  the  work  of  no  less  a  master  than 
Donatello,  whose  crucifix  at  Santa  Croce  has 
already  been  noticed.  Vasari  mentions  the  statue  of 
St.  John,  which  was  in  his  time  in  the  Chiesa  dei 
Frari  at  Venice,  and  is  there  to  this  day.  Although 
probably  executed  between  the  years  1453- 1466,  when 
Donatello  had  completed  his  work  at  Padua  and  was 
in  the  full  vigour  of  his  art,  this  is  not  a  piece  which 
attracts  greatly  at  first  sight.  The  head  resembles, 
rather,  a  head  of  our  Lord  at  the  pillar,  crowned  with 
thorns.  Yet  the  expression  is  an  appealing  one.  It 
is  'the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,'  the 
beckoning  hand  upraised.  The  body  is  clothed  to  the 
knees  with  skins,  with  some  drapery  over  the  shoulders 
and  arms.  The  limbs  are  admirably  chiselled,  but — 
allowing  for  the  qualities  of  two  different  methods 
and  materials — not  so  finely  modelled,  perhaps,  as 
in  the  bronze  St.  John  of  the  Baptistery  of  Siena. 
Both  exhibit  the  same  style,  both  are  dramatic  to  a 
degree,  telling  a  whole  story  in  a  single  figure.  So 
also  with  that  most  touching  and  powerful,  if  at  the 
same  time  almost  repellent  figure  of  the  Magdalen  of 
the  same  Baptistery.  It  is  reproduced  here  in  con- 
256 


PI.  A  TE  X!.  1  ■ 


ITALIAN    FIGURE    WORK 

trast  with  the  German  conception  of  Riemenschneider 
(Plate  XII.),  a  conception  which,  after  all,  is  strongly 
indebted  to  Italian  precedents,  however  filtered  and 
adapted  to  other  temperaments.  Very  different  indeed 
is  Donatello's  Magdalen  from  the  later  pagan  nudities 
with  which  we  are  familiar :  the  beautiful  sinner  read- 
ing in  a  cave.  What  is  insisted  on  here  is  penitence 
and  renunciation.  It  is  true  that  the  figure  is  horrify- 
ing in  its  realism.  The  Magdalen,  clothed  in  long 
unkempt  hair,  is  reduced  almost  to  a  skeleton.  Pre- 
mature old  age  has  disfigured  the  once  beautiful  body. 
The  expression  of  the  face  is  almost  repulsive.  Yet  if 
art  is  entitled  to  teach,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  a  great 
moral  lesson  is  taught  in  such  a  figure,  and  whatever 
may  have  been  said  against  it  by  some  art  critics,  we 
may  be  permitted  to  class  it  among  the  great  sculptor's 
highest  efforts. 

An  interesting  figure  of  St.  Christopher,  standing 
about  five  feet  in  height,  was  acquired  by  M.  Eugene 
Piot  at  Siena,  and  bequeathed  by  him  to  the  Louvre. 
At  one  time  in  the  Church  of  Sant'  Agostino,  Vasari 
mentions  it  in  his  life  of  Signorelli.  The  saint  is 
represented  as  a  youngish-looking  man,  leaning  with 
both  hands  on  a  long  stick,  or  pole,  after  having 
carried  the  Christ-child  across  the  river.  The  bam- 
bino is  missing.  Analogies  with  the  character  and 
style  of  the  well-known  Signorelli  monument  have  led 
to  the  attribution  of  this  figure  to  Jacopo  della  Quercia, 
or  Jacopo  della  Fonte,  but — though  it  is  almost  a 
pure  matter  of  conjecture  on  the  part  of  M.  Piot  and 
others — a  more  likely  name  is  that  of  II  Vecchietta, 
who  was  a  pupil  of  Quercia.  He  was  above  all  a 
bronzist,  and  this  certainly  fine  figure  is  really  after 
that  method.  A  writer  in  L' Arte  (anno  x.  fasc.  Hi. 
1907)  considers  it  to  be  not  at  all  in  his  style,  nor  in 
that  of  Jacopo  della  Fonte,  and  proposes  Francesco  di 
Giorgio,  although  few  pieces  of  the  latter's  work  are 
R  257 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

known.  There  are  two  angels  in  bronze  of  the 
high  altar  of  Siena  Cathedral,  in  which  he  sees 
analogies.  Francesco's  style  is  of  the  school  of  II 
Vecchietta,  of  whom  also  Urbano  da  Cortona  was  a 
pupil.  Something  might  be  said  of  the  treatment  of 
the  hands  in  II  Vecchietta's  style,  or  of  analogies 
with  his  '  Resurrection '  and  his  tomb  of  Marino 
Soccino  at  Siena.  But  nothing  is  more  unsatisfactory 
than  deductions  from  comparisons  of  style  in  two  such 
widely  differing  materials. 

Though  of  full  sixteenth  century,  and  perhaps 
beyond  our  limits  of  date,  some  notice  must  be  given 
here  to  a  beautiful  statue  of  St.  Sebastian  in  the 
Salting  collection  of  the  Kensington  Museum,  which 
found  no  place  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  boxwood 
work  of  this  class.  It  is  of  fig  wood,  standing  about 
three  feet  high,  and  is  here  reproduced  (Plate  xv.). 
Although  on  a  comparatively  large  scale,  the  impres- 
sion conveyed  is  that  it  is  goldsmith's  work  of  a  high 
character,  and  whether  or  not  there  is  absolute  evidence 
in  its  favour,  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  should  be 
attributed  to  Ambrogio  Foppa,  called  II  Caradosso, 
generally  considered  next  to,  or  even  rivalling.  Cellini 
amongst  the  goldsmiths  of  Milan.  We  have  beautiful 
things  in  the  shape  of  paxes  and  inkstands  and  other 
decorative  objects  from  his  hand,  but  I  do  not  know 
that  there  is  any  large  figure  work  in  bronze  which  can 
be  given  to  him  with  certainty. 

Should  we  attribute  a  fine  statue  in  limewood,  of 
St.  Roch,  in  the  church  of  the  Annunziata  at  Florence 
to  Italian,  German,  or  French  art?  The  question  has 
received  numerous  answers  from  the  time  of  Vasari  to 
our  own  day.  But  it  is  not  really  difficult  of  solution. 
This  ficrure  is  now  in  a  niche  in  the  wall  of  the  second 
chapel  on  the  left  as  one  goes  up  the  church.  Painted 
white,  to  imitate  marble,  it  escapes  general  notice  as  a 
figure  of  wood.  Vasari,  in  his  work  on  Technique,  of 
258 


ITALIAN    FIGURE    WORK 

which  the  first  edition  was  published  about  1550, 
describes  it  as  a  miracle  of  wood-carving  by  the  hand 
of  a  Frenchman  whom  he  calls  Maestro  Janni,  living, 
he  says,  in  Florence,  who  had  adopted  the  Italian 
manner.  He  says  of  it  that  it  is  a  figure  of  San 
Rocco  in  limewood,  life-size,  with  soft  and  undercut 
draperies,  preserved  to  his  own  day  in  the  church  of 
the  Annunziata,  free  from  any  covering  of  colour,  and 
beautiful  beyond  all  other  figures  carved  in  wood. 
We  do  not,  of  course,  always  take  Vasari  au  pied  de 
la  lettre.  Granted  that  there  is  something  of  the  Italian 
maniera  (it  is  interesting  and  instructive  that  Vasari 
should  notice  this),  iconographically  we  have  a  treat- 
ment hardly  in  accord  with  Italian  tradition.  St. 
Roch  was  a  favourite  figure  in  Germany  as  well  as  in 
France.  The  drapery,  with  its  sharp  angles,  the  bare 
knees  and  long  turned-over  boots,  the  downcast  eyes, 
the  down-pointing  fingers,  the  large  close-fitting  skull- 
cap as  in  Peter  Vischer's  portrait  of  himself,  all  are 
distinctly  German.  We  must  remember  the  constant 
flow  of  German  artists  into  Italy  during  their  wander- 
years  in  the  late  fifteenth  and  early  sixteenth  centuries. 
Many  also  settled  and  worked  there.  The  name  Janni 
might  indeed  be  the  Italianized  form  of  a  stranger 
artist — by  name  John — from  almost  any  country.  The 
figure  certainly  points  to  the  Niirnberg  school,  and  has 
in  fact  been  ascribed  to  Veit  Stoss.  It  is  known,  also, 
that  Stoss  sent  many  figures  to  Italy.  M.  Marcel  Rey- 
mond,  however,  says  that  in  the  over-elaborated  costume, 
the  excess  of  reliefs  and  the  '  agitation  '  of  the  draperies, 
it  is  connected  with  French  art  of  the  fourteenth  to  the 
sixteenth  centuries,  notably  that  of  Burgundy. 

Though  late,  an  extremely  interesting  altarpiece, 
with  many  detached  figures  showing  Flemish  or 
German  influence  in  Italy,  if  indeed  it  is  not  a  work 
of  one  of  their  sculptors  domiciled  in  the  country,  is 
in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  [No.    137,    1891]. 

259 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

It  is  of  the  pictorial  kind,  with  figures  in  the  round,  of 
plain  uncoloured  wood,  measuring  about  5  feet  high  by  5 
feet  in  width.  In  it  we  have,  principally,  the  crucifixion 
with  numerous  figures  and  groups,  soldiers  on  foot 
and  on  horseback,  the  Jews  and  other  traditional 
personages,  in  costumes  and  armour  of  the  early 
sixteenth  century.  Nothing  more  is  known  of  it,  or 
of  its  supposed  author,  than  some  particulars  in  a 
letter  from  the  Italian  vendor  in  1891.  He  says: — 
'  This  carving  in  wood,  representing  the  nativity  and 
the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  was  formerly  in  the  church 
of  S.  Agostino  at  Piacenza,  and  is  attributed  to  a 
certain  Giovanni,  or  Lucio,  Ottivetono  of  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  to  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.' 
I  do  not  know  that  the  name  Ottivetono  is  elsewhere 
to  be  heard  of,  nor  does  it  sound  very  Italian.  The 
church  of  St.  Augustine  was  suppressed  by  Napoleon  i., 
and  the  carving  presented  by  the  Pope  to  a  duke  of 
the  Farnese  family.  There  was  at  one  time  a  frame  all 
round  it,  which,  it  is  said,  has  been  transformed  into  a 
bookcase  in  England. 

In  this  comparatively  brief  notice  there  has  been  by 
no  means  any  pretension  to  a  general  study  of  Italian 
art  in  wood  of  the  periods  included.  Such  a  task 
would  involve  many  other  considerations,  and  could 
not  be  confined  to  art  in  one  particular  material  only. 
I  have  desired  only  to  call  the  attention  of  those — and 
they  are  many  I  think — who  are  not  already  familiar 
with  them,  to  some  examples  of  a  particular  kind 
which,  generally  speaking,  do  not  find  their  analogies 
elsewhere.  Considerations  of  space  compel  also  the 
leaving  on  one  side  such  architectural  work  with  figures 
as  the  splendid  retable  of  the  cathedral  of  Piacenza, 
late  Gothic  work  of  Antonio  Burlenghi,  many  other 
fine  examples  of  Venetian  sculptors  in  wood,  and  those 
Gothic  choirs  which  would  otherwise  form  a  portion  of 
our  subject,  if  within  our  limits  of  style  or  date. 
260 


CHAPTER     XIV 

ON   THE   COLOURING   OF   WOOD   SCULPTURE 

THE  extreme  lengths,  already  alluded  to  in  a 
previous  chapter,  to  which  the  practice  of 
colouring  sculpture  of  all  kinds  was  carried 
in  Spain,  and  continued  there  longer  than  elsewhere, 
lead  us  to  some  general  consideration  of  the  subject. 
When  we  remember  that,  as  there  has  been  occasion 
also  more  than  once  to  remark,  it  was  the  universal 
custom  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  colour  every  description 
of  sculpture,  and  especially  sculpture  in  wood,  it  is 
evident  that  the  question  demands  more  than  ordinary 
attention.  We  have  seen  the  practice  exemplified  in 
the  retables  of  the  Netherlands  and  Germany,  in  the 
single  figures  and  groups  for  roods,  the  Madonna 
statuettes  and  crucifixes,  and  in  the  beautiful  Italian 
Annunciation  figures  of  the  quattrocento  and  earlier. 
As  everything  else  in  art,  polychromatic  decoration 
comes  to  us  from  the  East.  Long  ago  Owen  Jones 
wrote  in  his  Grammar  of  Ornament :  *  The  architec- 
ture of  the  Egyptians  is  thoroughly  polychromatic  : 
they  painted  everything.  They  dealt  in  flat  tints,  and 
used  neither  shade  nor  shadow.  The  colours  used  by 
the  Egyptians  were  probably  red,  blue,  and  yellow, 
with  black  and  white  to  define  and  give  distinctness  to 
the  various  colours  :  with  green  used  generally,  though 
not  universally,  as  a  local  colour,  such  as  the  green 
leaves  of  the  lotus.'  The  statues  and  bas-reliefs  in 
limestone,  basalt,  wood,  and  even  granite  were  coloured 

261 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

to  life,  with  differences  distinguishing  those  of  men 
from  women,  the  latter  having  always  a  higher  com- 
plexion. Even  the  mummy  cases  were  gorgeously 
coloured  and  thickly  gilded.  Numerous  are  the  refer- 
ences to  the  practice  in  Holy  Writ.  In  the  Book  of 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  we  find  :  *  For  neither  did  the 
mischievous  invention  deceive  us,  nor  an  image  spotted 
with  divers  colours,  the  painter's  fruitless  labour,  the 
sight  whereof  enticeth  fools  to  lust  after  it,  and  so  they 
desire  the  form  of  a  dead  image  that  hath  no  breath  ' 

(xv.  4.  5)- 

It  would  be  interesting,  if  our  space  allowed,  to 
follow  the  question  through  the  times  of  ancient  Greece 
and  Rome,  to  discuss  the  Parthenon,  the  Temple  of 
Minerva  at  Athens,  the  colossal  statues  of  Pheidias  and 
Praxiteles,  the  polychromatic  decoration  of  buildings, 
and  of  statues,  at  Herculaneum  and  at  Pompeii. 
Socrates  is  reported  by  Plato,  in  his  Fourth  Book  of 
the  Republic,  as  remonstrating  with  those  who  blamed 
the  painters  of  statues  with  not  being  contented  to 
leave  the  eyes  black  instead  of  enriching  them  with  the 
most  beautiful  colours.  The  sage  remarked  :  '  Pray, 
sir,  do  not  suppose  that  we  ought  to  make  the  eyes  so 
beautiful  as  not  to  look  like  eyes,  nor  the  other  parts  in 
like  manner,  but  observe  whether,  by  giving  to  every 
part  what  properly  belongs  to  it,  we  make  the  whole 
beautiful '  {Republic,  Eng.  transL,  Cam.,  1866).  Un- 
doubtedly the  use  of  colour  in  architecture  and 
sculpture  in  marble  was  much  more  common  than  is 
generally  thought.  The  Elgin  marbles  have  been 
proved  to  have  been  painted  :  the  great  ivory  and  gold 
statues  of  Minerva  and  Jupiter  Olympius  were  fully 
coloured.  Sometimes  the  hair  alone  was  gilded,  or 
painted  yellow,  and  ornaments  were  frequently  added, 
the  ears,  for  example,  being  pierced  for  rings.  Very 
applicable  to  our  subject  is  the  interesting  account  by 
Callistratus  of  a  bronze  statue  of  a  boy.  He  says  : 
262 


COLOURING    OF    STATUARY 

*  His  cheeks  were  tinged  ruddy  colour  like  a  rose.  We 
marvelled  to  see  bronze  imitate  nature :  for  though 
metal  it  blushed.' 

In  early  Christian  times  the  evidence  of  the 
catacombs  is  alone  sufficient  to  show  that  the  same 
feeling  prevailed.  Though  we  have  few  examples  to 
guide  us,  we  may  gather  that  in  early  mediaeval  times, 
down  to  the  twelfth  century,  statuary,  following  the 
most  ancient  principles,  was  painted  in  a  most  conven- 
tional manner,  the  prevailing  colour  being  an  ochre- 
tinted  white.  About  the  middle  of  the  century  the 
colouring  of  architecture  and  sculpture  became  general 
both  within  and  without  the  buildings.  There  was 
a  universal  call  for  brightness  and  cheerfulness 
in  decoration,  not  only  appealing  to  the  senses  as 
a  mere  gratification  of  them,  but  a  use  of  art  as  a 
teaching  medium,  compelling  attention :  as  it  were, 
the  advertising  method  of  the  day.  And  so  the  suc- 
ceeding centuries,  until  the  change  of  ideas  in  the 
sixteenth,  were  essentially  ages  of  colour  and  opposed 
to  the  cold  monotony  of  white  which  is  the  absence 
of  colour.  The  note  of  joyousness  was  abroad,  and 
amongst  innumerable  signs  of  this,  surely  it  would  be 
sufficient  to  compare  an  archaic,  grave  Madonna  of  the 
eleventh  century,  clad  in  sombre  garments  of  a  dull 
uniform  tint,  with  the  sweet  smiling,  almost  coquettish, 
figure  that  an  ivory  statuette  of  the  Virgin,  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  presents  to  us,  the  draperies  and 
ornaments  decorated  with  bright  and  lively  colours 
enriched  with  gilding. 

The  colour  of  statuary,  and  of  all  the  sculptured 
ornament,  pervaded  the  whole  interior  of  sacred 
edifices.  To  understand  properly  the  spirit  of  the 
Middle  Ages  it  is  necessary  to  picture  these  great 
creations  as  glowing  with  painting  and  gilding  from 
top  to  bottom.  Even  the  light  was  subdued  and 
tinted,  the  sun's  rays  entering  through  stained  windows 

263 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

of  glass,  of  which  the  secret  of  producing  the  richest 
tones  has  been  lost.  If  we  bear  this  picture  in  mind  it 
is  impossible  to  imagine  that  mediaeval  feeling  could 
tolerate  the  white  marble  statuary  which  forms  such 
glaring  contrasts  with  its  surroundings  in  the  Abbey 
Church  of  Westminster,  or  the  chill  regularity  of  the 
Madeleine  at  Paris.  Above  all  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  colouring  of  the  statue  or  other  piece  of 
sculpture  is  not  to  be  considered  for  itself  alone. 
Everything  was  studied  with  regard  to  its  effect  in  the 
general  scheme.  Marble  and  alabaster,  metal  and 
wood,  were  used  also  for  sepulchral  monuments,  and 
for  these,  too,  polychrome  was  the  rule.  Yet  they  were 
not  treated  as  separate  creations  and  placed  haphazard. 
In  our  modern  Gothic  it  would  seem  to  be  too  much 
the  rule  to  build  and  decorate  piecemeal  with  no 
governing  plan.  Things  are  accepted  as  they  come  in 
and  a  place  found  for  them  somewhere. 

In  mediaeval  times,  as  a  general  principle — perhaps 
in  the  earlier  days  arising  from  a  want  of  more 
extended  knowledge — the  colours  applied  both  to 
statuary  and  smaller  sculpture  were  limited  to  the 
three  primary  ones :  a  dark  red,  yellow,  and  blue. 
The  great  sculptures  of  Reims  were,  for  example, 
painted  in  this  way.  Many,  indeed,  were  simply 
partially  or  wholly  gilded.  Black  was  of  course  used, 
and,  later  on,  browns,  purples,  and  violets  were  added. 
In  viewing  them,  as  we  do  to-day,  we  must  remember 
how  the  reds,  for  example,  lose  their  original  strength 
and  brilliancy,  and  other  colours  are  toned  down,  by 
atmospheric  influences.  In  France,  as  elsewhere,  the 
colouring  of  sculpture  was  long  held  in  high  honour. 
For  the  three  centuries  during  which  we  can  point  to 
names — the  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  sixteenth — those 
of  AndrdBeauneveu,  of  Michel  Colombe,  and  of  Germain 
Pilon  may  well  serve  to  illustrate  this  side  of  poly- 
chrome art.  It  was  long  before  oil  colours  were  used, 
264 


COLOURING 

the  medium,  in  general,  being  prepared  from  gums, 
albumen,  or  other  colloids.  Existing  documents  are 
numerous  relating  to  the  painting  of  such  monuments 
as  the  chartreuse  of  Dijon,  its  tombs,  retables,  and 
single  figures.  From  these  much  information  may  be 
gathered  regarding  the  methods,  materials,  and  prices 
paid.  Nor  is  information  wanting  in  respect  to  the 
colouring  of  sculpture  in  the  neighbouring  provinces 
of  Flanders  and  France,  which  were  in  close  relation- 
ship with,  or  dependence  on,  the  courts  of  Burgundy. 
Not  the  least  interesting  fact  that  we  can  gather  is  that 
Jan  Van  Eyck  himself  painted  six  statues  for  the  facade 
of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  at  Bruges,  and  the  names  of 
many  others  of  the  most  famous  Flemish  painters, 
employed  in  a  similar  way,  are  known.  The  question 
of  their  participation  in  the  work  of  the  carv^ed  wood 
retables  has  already  received  attention  in  these  pages. 
This  is  a  matter  of  considerable  interest,  but,  together 
with  the  subject,  generally,  of  the  polychrome  decora- 
tion of  these  works  in  Flanders  and  Germany,  is  one 
which  it  would  be  impossible  to  treat  adequately  within 
the  limits  of  a  single  chapter  and  without  the  aid  of 
coloured  illustrations.  When  coloured  at  all,  no 
portion  of  the  surface  of  the  wood  remained  visible. 
Thick  gold  was  used  also  as  a  means  of  accentuation, 
the  backgrounds  almost  invariably  richly  gilded  or 
diapered,  and  the  gildings  burnished.  It  was  a 
common  practice  also  to  gild  the  hair  and  beards  of 
the  figures. 

The  colouring  of  Madonna  figures  and  groups  and 
of  crucifixes  has  also  been  noticed  in  their  several 
places,  and  the  system  being  everywhere  identical  need 
not  again  be  considered  at  any  length.  Gold  was 
the  dominant  in  the  scheme  which  blended  the  colours 
into  harmony.  So  general  and  universal  was  the 
practice  that  the  natural  colours  of  wood  were  not 
permitted  to  assert  themselves.     Bronze,  and  even  the 

265 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

precious  metals,  did  not  escape,  and  we  know  how 
beautiful  was  the  colouring  of  mediaeval  ivories.  In 
general  terms  it  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  the 
immense  influence  in  these  times  of  the  art  of  the 
Netherlands  through  its  painters.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  they  seem  to  have  given  the  word  of  command 
to  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  Europe.  Not  even  Italy 
can  be  excepted,  and  if  Italy  is  mentioned  in  this 
connexion  it  is  with  a  full  recollection  of  the  Annuncia- 
tion groups  of  Pisa,  of  Florence,  and  of  Siena,  which 
have  been  noticed  in  a  previous  chapter,  and  of  much 
else  also  that  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  pass  over. 
The  application  of  colour  to  other  materials,  such  as 
the  terra-cotta  reliefs  and  busts  of  the  period,  must  not 
be  forgotten,  and  even  the  majolica  chefs-dceiivre  have 
their  relation  to  our  subject.  In  common  with  all 
these  the  great  names  of  Brunelleschi,  of  Donatello,  of 
Benedetto  da  Majano,  of  Nino  Pisano,  of  Jacopo  della 
Querela — to  name  no  others — are  equally  connected 
with  the  colouring  of  wood  sculpture. 

Painting  on  reliefs  differs,  of  course,  from  painting 
on  plane  surfaces.  It  has  rules  of  its  own.  There  is 
always  the  natural  play  of  light  and  shade  of  which 
advantage  can  be  taken.  Thus,  two  colours,  or  tones 
of  equal  value,  can  be  placed  side  by  side  ;  for  example, 
a  blue  and  a  purple.  In  the  thirteenth  century  art  of 
all  kinds  tended  towards  naturalism.  Conventional 
methods  gave  way  before  increased  knowledge  and 
powers  of  observation.  Painters  learnt  to  make  use  of 
such  aids  as  reflected  half-tones,  or  processes  such  as 
we  now  call  scumbling,  and  other  methods  of  giving 
brilliancy  to  their  scheme  of  coloration. 

Later  on  they  were  not  afraid  of  stronger  contrasts  ; 
for  instance,  a  rosy  tint  against  a  deep  blue,  a  light 
green  and  dark  purple.  But  there  was  always  the 
danger  of  commonplace  trickery,  and  the  colouring  of 
sculpture  generally,  in  the  later  days  of  Gothic  art, 
266 


POLYCHROMATIC    EFFECTS 

losing  the  quality  of  the  earlier  methods,  became  in 
some  countries — in  our  own  for  example,  as  certain 
rood-screens  will  testify  —  garish  and  vulgar.  But 
degeneration  in  taste  in  this  respect  was  universal 
when  the  intervention  of  great  artists  was  no  longer  so 
easily  obtainable.  For,  if  allowable  at  all,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  polychromatic  decoration  of  sculpture 
is  a  branch  of  art  which  demands  a  special  training  and 
the  highest  talent. 

So  great  have  been  the  changes  in  the  interior 
of  churches  and  in  the  disposition  of  the  ornaments 
and  sculpture  of  all  kinds  which  we  still  possess  in 
them  that  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine  the  effect  pro- 
duced when  the  edifices  were  first  completed  and 
adorned,  when  every  detail  from  a  vestment  or  even  a 
censer,  to  the  light  which  filtered  through  the  storied 
or  jewelled  windows,  had  a  studied  effect  in  the  general 
harmony.  Possibly  all  was  not  due  to  design  alone, 
and  some  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  natural  good 
taste  of  the  time.  Yet  the  mediaeval  master  of  the 
works  had  doubtless  more  supreme  authority  than  the 
architect  of  modern  times,  and  his  aim  was  to  accentuate 
the  lines  of  the  building,  and  to  give  special  prominence 
to  those  portions  which  were  richest  in  sculpture.  He 
used  his  flat  surfaces  in  general  harmony  with  the  rest, 
filling  them  with  painted  histories  for  the  instruction  of 
the  people  who  could  read  in  no  other  way.  And  as 
time  went  on,  he  learnt  to  know  the  value  of  materials, 
such  as  the  different  woods  and  their  varying  tones 
which  have  a  colour  of  their  own,  contributing  without 
additions  to  the  polychromatic  scheme.  The  modern 
architect  is  satisfied  with  the  introduction  of  pictures  in 
glass  admitting  as  much  light  as  possible,  and  indeed 
we  can  hardly  feel  certain  that  in  our  northern  climate 
the  effect  produced  by  the  marble  facings,  inlays,  and 
mosaics  of  such  an  edifice  as  the  cathedral  at  West- 
minster is  not  as  far  as  we  can  go.     Yet  the  climate 

267 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

was  the  same  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  therefore  it  is 
possible  that  we  do  not  realize  completely  how  the 
polychromatic  decoration  of  exteriors,  as  well  as  of 
interiors,  was  actually  carried  out. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  choirs  of  Amiens,  Ulm, 
and  so  many  others  of  the  great  cathedrals,  with  their 
stalls  and  canopies,  thrones  and  sedilia,  were  left 
uncoloured  and  in  the  purity  of  the  unstained  wood. 
It  may  have  been  so  in  general,  perhaps,  but  we  see 
them  to-day  after  the  lapse  of  centuries  and  among 
altered  surroundings.  Nor  do  we  know  for  certain 
how  the  wood  was  treated.  Certainly  such  great 
expanses  of  newly  carved  surfaces  would  not  have  been 
tolerated.  No  doubt  a  considerable  amount  of  relief 
was  obtained  by  colour  and  gilding.  The  carved 
screens  and  fronts  which  remain  of  the  rood-lofts  which 
abound  in  Devonshire  and  the  West  Country  were 
elaborately  painted  and  gilded,  so  that  not  the  smallest 
part  of  the  surface  of  the  wood  was  left  clear.  Traces 
of  colour  still  remain  on  some  bench-ends,  and  even  on 
misericords  in  England.  Of  recent  years  many  of  the 
restored  screens  have  been  repainted  and  gilded,  though 
not  in  all  cases,  perhaps,  judiciously.  But,  as  a  rule, 
this  has  been  done  in  accordance  with  the  remains  of 
colour  still  happily  left.  The  mediaeval  practice  may 
have  been  abused,  but  the  remedy  under  the  classical 
Renaissance  was  worse.  With  the  departure  of  colour 
went  also  the  joyousness  of  life  amongst  the  simple 
inhabitants  of  the  villages,  the  fervour  of  the  devotion 
and  the  attachment  to  their  churches.  And  whatever 
may  have  been  the  other  contributory  causes,  it  would 
seem  that  the  period  of  the  Renaissance  synchronized 
with  the  loss  of  the  good  taste  possessed  by  the  people 
which  had  hitherto  made  of  every  man  an  artist  and  a 
craftsman.  Art  was  henceforth  for  the  learned  and  the 
wealthy. 

In  mid-fourteenth  century  and  during  the  first 
268 


COLOURING    OF    STATUARY 

quarter  of  the  fifteenth  the  polychromatic  decoration  of 
sculpture  was  general  in  Germany  as  elsewhere,  but  less 
the  absolute  rule  in  certain  districts  than  in  others.  At 
the  end  of  the  fifteenth,  in  the  flourishing  times  of  the 
schools  of  Nurnberg,  Wiirzburg,  and  Suabia  to  which 
so  much  of  our  attention  has  been  directed,  it  would 
seem  probable  that  a  considerable  number  of  the  great 
retables  were  never  intended  to  receive  decoration  in 
colour.  And  when  we  consider  the  perfection  of  finish 
in  such  a  group  as  the  fragment  in  the  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum,  with  the  figures  of  SS.  Anne  and 
Joachim,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  the  aid  of  the 
painter  could  have  been  called  in  for  an  addition  which 
would  completely  change  its  character.  We  may 
sincerely  hope  that  it  was  not,  for  the  sculptor's  art  of 
the  time  was  on  an  immeasurably  higher  level  than 
that  of  the  painter — whether  identical  with  him  or  not 
— employed  to  colour  such  work.  At  any  rate  the 
taste  of  to-day  will  be  more  than  satisfied  to  find  it  in 
its  present  condition.  So  again  with  the  Nurnberg 
Madonna.  This  and  the  Pieta  in  the  Marienkirche 
have  for  many  years  been  covered  with  a  uniform 
coating  of  a  dull  olive  colour  which  is  not  altogether 
unpleasing.  The  artist's  intention  may  have  been  to 
complete  these  figures  in  polychrome,  but  we  have  no 
means  of  determining  whether  this  was  carried  out  or 
not.  Modern  copies  of  this  Madonna  are  frequently 
coloured  with  the  most  deplorable  and  disastrous 
results.  The  coloured  statues  in  stone  and  wood  in 
Catholic  churches  are,  indeed,  as  a  rule,  beneath 
criticism.  Happily,  exceptions  occur  which  show  that 
a  careful  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  delicacy  of 
treatment  which  characterizes  the  best  feeling  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  That  the  colouring  of  figure 
sculpture  is  not  altogether  a  lost  art,  an  instance  may 
be  given  in  the  stone  statuettes  of  the  altarpiece  in  the 
Hammond  chapel  of  the  Abbey  church  of  Downside. 

269 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Some    mention    will    be    made    in    a    succeeding 
chapter  of  the  sepulchral  effigies  in  wood,  of  which  we 
still   possess  in  England  nearly  a  hundred  examples. 
Dating  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  aid  of  the  painter  and  illuminator  was,  in  every  case, 
called    in,    in   accordance   with    the    general    practice. 
Monochrome  was,  as  has  been  shown,  disliked.     Sculp- 
tor and  painter  worked  together,  nor  would  it  be  easy 
to   say  which  was    subsidiary   to   the   other.     In    the 
wooden  effigies  the   groundwork  was  first  of  all  pre- 
pared  by  cementing   linen  over  any  cracks   or  faults 
there  might  be  in  the  wood,  applying  a  coating  of  size, 
and    next   a   pretty   thick   layer   of  a   composition   of 
parchment,    glue,    and    whiting,     forming    a    smooth 
surface  for  the  reception   of  the  colour  and   gilding. 
The   coating  was    sufficiently  thick    in    places,  where 
required,  to  admit  of  modelling,  after  the  manner  of 
gesso  work,  and  capable  of  being  impressed  or  tooled 
with    dies    and    stamps    and    raised    for    gilding   and 
jewelling.     As  was  the  practice  elsewhere,  the  grounds 
for  gilding  were  also  often  first  of  all  treated  with  bole 
Armenian.     This  has  the  effect  of  giving  transparency 
to  the  gold,  which  was  liberally  applied,  mixed  with 
white  of  Qgg]   left  matt,  or  burnished  with  an  agate. 
In    this   manner   the    details   and   ornaments   of    the 
armour,    the    crowns,    sceptres,    sword  -  hilts,    spurs, 
orphreys   of  vestments,  jewels,  and    other  accessories 
were   raised,  chiselled   and   goffered  with   the  richest 
effect.     How  fine  this    painting  was   in   some  of  the 
English  effigies  may  be  gathered — to  offer  but  one  or 
two  examples — from  the   figure  in  stone  of  John  de 
Sheppy,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  in  Rochester  Cathedral. 
He  lies  with  precious  mitre  on   his  head,  the  hands 
covered  with  the  embroidered  episcopal  gloves,  in  full 
Gothic  red  chasuble,  and  maniple,  of  rich  design,  lined 
with   green,   and   bordered  with    a   gold   orphrey,   the 
thinner  dalmatic  of  an  equally  beautiful  pattern,  and 
270 


COLOUR    IN    CHURCHES 

under  it  the  silken  tunicle,  and  alb  with  embroidered 
apparels,  the  sandals,  and  finally,  beneath  his  head,  the 
two  cushions  of  rich  pattern  and  colouring.  Or,  again, 
there  is  the  effigy  of  Bishop  Bronescombe  (1280  a.d.) 
in  Exeter  Cathedral.  Unfortunately,  in  the  case  of  the 
greater  number  of  the  wooden  effigies,  the  merest  traces 
only  of  the  original  polychromy  remain,  and  many 
have  suffered  the  degradation  of  successive  coatings  of 
whitewash  or  paint — sometimes  sanded,  with  the  idea 
of  imitating  stone  or  marble,  and  of  bringing  them 
into  accordance  with  the  singular  taste  in  ecclesiastical 
art  of  the  last  century. 

In  our  own  country  we  can  find  innumerable 
instances  of  the  prevalent  practice  of  colouring  sculp- 
ture both  in  stone  and  wood.  We  can  point  as 
examples,  among  many  others,  to  the  minstrel  gallery 
of  Exeter,  to  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Ely,  the  chantries  of 
Salisbury,  of  York,  of  Gloucester,  or  of  Winchester, 
and  for  exterior  sculpture,  to  the  west  front  of  Wells  ; 
and  the  restoration  of  the  numerous  village  churches 
which  has  been  undertaken  in  recent  years  shows  how 
they  glowed  with  colour  and  gilding  from  the  angels 
supporting  the  hammer-beams  of  the  roofs  to  the 
elaborately  carved  wood  screens  and  rood-lofts.  Not 
unfrequently — perhaps  as  a  rule — the  removal  of  the 
horrible  ochre  wash  on  the  walls  has  revealed  gigantic 
pictures  of  St.  Christopher  and  other  legendary  figures. 
This  has  recently  occurred  at  the  village  church  of 
Poughill  in  Cornwall.  Undoubtedly  the  whole  of  the 
interiors  was  a  blaze  of  coloured  illustration,  the  walls 
themselves  a  Biblia  PaMperitm  in  the  most  attractive 
form. 

In  the  fifteenth  century,  especially,  the  polychrom- 
ing  of  sculpture  reached  its  utmost  limit.  It  may  not 
be  without  importance  to  notice  that  at  the  famous 
chateau  of  Gaillon,  of  which  we  still  possess  such 
remarkable  remains  of  sculpture  not  only  in   marble 

271 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

and  stone,  but  also  in  wood,  French  and  Italian 
artists  worked  together  for  the  Cardinal  d'Amboise. 
There  is  documentary  evidence  that,  so  lately  as  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  carved  wood- 
work of  the  chateau  still  retained  its  original  colouring. 
Nor  was  the  practice  less  general  in  France  throughout 
the  reign  of  Francis  i.,  despite  the  strong  influence  of 
Michael  Angelo.  For  it  was  in  measure  owing  to 
this  great  sculptor — as  later  on  in  our  own  country 
the  influence  of  our  most  renowned  architect  contri- 
buted to  the  destruction  of  the  Gothic  which  he 
detested — that  is  due  the  definite  disuse  of  the  poly- 
chromatic decoration  of  sculpture.  And  it  was  the 
restorers  of  churches  of  Wren's  time  who  first  started 
the  practice  of  whitewashing  them.  With  the  Renais- 
sance— at  any  rate  after  the  sixteenth  century — the 
colouring  of  sculpture  was  practically  a  prescribed 
art.  It  was  considered  vulgar,  and  imagined — but 
wrongly — to  be  opposed  to  the  canons  and  practice  of 
the  classical  art  then  so  much  admired. 

Nearly  all  Italian  marble  sculpture  is,  as  we  now 
find  it,  uncoloured.  But  close  examination  would 
show  that  originally  in  very  many — perhaps  in  the 
majority  of  cases — the  contrary  was  the  case.  The 
statues  and  statuettes,  busts,  and  bas-reliefs  in 
marble,  wood,  and  terra  cotta  of  Donatello,  of 
Rossellino,  of  Verrocchio,  of  Desiderio,  and  of  other 
great  names  of  the  Florentine  and  Sienese  schools, 
were,  in  countless  numbers,  coloured  and  gilded,  in 
parts  if  not  wholly.  In  wood  we  have  already  con- 
sidered many  Annunciation  figures  and  crucifixes. 
There  is,  indeed,  little  occasion  to  labour  the  question. 
What  is  necessary  to  insist  upon  is  that  the  practice, 
up  to  a  period  which  might  be  definitely  stated,  almost 
amounted  to  a  rule  without  exception.  The  French 
critic,  M.  Courajod,  has  not  hesitated  to  say  that,  in 
the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  Italy,  the  two 
272 


METHODS    OF    COLOURING 

arts  of  painting  and  sculpture  so  jostled  each  other, 
so  trod  on  each  other's  toes,  that  in  a  number  of 
instances  painting  was  sculpture  painted,  and  sculp- 
ture was  painting  sculptured.  In  general,  the  system 
was  followed  which  had  been  so  elaborately  and 
quaintly  laid  down  in  the  treatises  of  Theophilus  or 
of  Cennino  Cennini,  so  that  we  can  verify  the  pro- 
cesses from  the  Schedula  diver sarimi  Artitmi  of  the 
twelfth  century  work  to  the  Libro  d'Arte  of  the 
fifteenth.  The  general  preparation  was  for  centuries 
the  same  as  that  which  was  therein  taught.  The  wood 
was  covered  entirely  or  in  places,  and  principally  in 
the  draperies,  with  linen  prepared  with  a  cement  made 
from  boiled  shreds  of  parchment  or  from  cheese. 
Over  this  was  applied  a  layer  of  fine  plaster  of  a  fairly 
thick  consistency,  well  smoothed  and  made  still  thicker, 
and  raised  where  required,  for  modelling  in  details  of 
ornaments.  The  rest  was  the  work  of  the  painter, 
often,  as  in  the  case  of  such  figures  as  the  Annuncia- 
tion groups  of  Pisa  and  Lyon,  a  great  artist.  Tools 
were  used,  dies  in  circles,  nail-heads,  stars,  and  other 
devices  for  the  diaperings  and  other  ornaments. 
Sometimes  a  particular  artist  may  be  recognized  from 
these:  for  example  'the  master  of  the  tulip,'  whose 
name  is  not  known.  In  the  condition  in  which  we 
now  find  these  beautiful  figures  the  action  of  time  has 
harmonized  and  softened  down  the  original  brilliancy 
of  the  colours,  especially  the  reds,  and  subdued,  per- 
haps, the  over-gilding.  Sometimes,  as  in  many 
Italian,  Flemish,  and  Spanish  figures — for  example 
the  St.  Stephen  in  the  museum  at  Kensington — the 
whole  figure  is  thickly  gilded  on  a  ground  of  bole 
Armenian,  except  the  flesh-tints,  and  perhaps  the 
linings  of  the  draperies,  which  were  usually  blue  or 
green.  Often  the  edgings  and  orphreys  of  vestments 
had  inscriptions  running  down  their  lengths,  or  thick 
pastes  in  imitation  of  brocade,  and  the  gilding  diapered 
s  273 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

in  pointilU.  Or,  instead  of  gilding,  silver  leaf  would 
be  laid  on  the  wood  covered  with  a  transparent  layer  of 
varnish,  coloured  pink,  blue,  or  green,  with  an  effect  of 
translucent  enamel. 

Nowhere  more  than  in  Spain  has  the  colouring  of 
sculpture  been  carried  to  greater  lengths,  and  nowhere 
else  is  to  be  found    so  remarkable  a  history  of  the 
development  of  the  system,  its  spread  at  the  time  of 
the  Spanish  Renaissance,  and  its  degradation  in  the 
days  of  decadence.     The  story  can  be  taken  up  at  a 
comparatively   early    period    if    we    may    accept,    for 
example,  the  painting  of  the  sculpture  of  the  cathedral 
of  Santiago  de  Compostella  as  contemporary  with  the 
completion  of  the  building  in    1188.      The   rage   for 
colouring  every  description  of  sculpture  was  extended 
even    to    such    things    as    the    great    silver-gilt    and 
enamelled  reliquaries,  of  which  the  one  containing  the 
head  of  St.  Valerius,  made  in  1397,  is  an  example,  or 
the  silver  statuette  of  St.  George  in  the  chapel  of  the 
Palacio  de  la   Diputacidn   Provincial,  at    Barcelona. 
For  the  polychroming  of  retables,  and  the  statuettes 
and  groups  appertaining  to  them,  a  numerous  body 
of  workers  was  employed  under  the  direction  of  the 
master  builder.     There  were  the  iniagi7ieros,  or  figure 
sculptors,  \\\t  encarnadores  or  flesh  painters,  estofadores 
or  painters  of  stuffs,  gilders,  damasceners,  and  other 
assistants.     Amongst  these  the  director,  or  principal 
artist,  was  the  encarnador.     Some  coloured  statues  in 
stone  of  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  now  in  the 
museum  at  Leon,  are  evidence  of  the  influence  in  the 
northern  provinces  of  France  and  her  schools  on  archi- 
tecture  and    figure  sculpture  which  continued    to   be 
dominant  until    the    middle  of   the  fifteenth  century. 
Not  yet,  however,  had  French  artists  been  introduced. 
In  the  fourteenth  century  the  peculiarly  Spanish  system 
of  colouring  begins  to  assert  itself  strongly :  a  system 
which  is  characteristic  for  many  centuries.     The  seven- 
274 


SPANISH    METHODS 

teenth-century  statuette  of  St.  Catherine  from  the 
Maskell  collection,  now  in  the  museum  at  Kensington, 
is  a  fine  example  of  these  methods,  difficult  to  explain, 
in  which  the  grounds  of  the  draperies  are  prepared  by 
fine  alternating  bands  of  gold,  yellow  ochre,  Indian 
brown,  and  indigo,  modifying  the  prominence  of  the 
gilding,  yet  without  losing  any  of  its  rich  effect. 
Undoubtedly  the  Spanish  colourists  borrowed  freely 
from  the  practice  of  their  Mussulman  conquerors  in 
the  arrangement  of  tones  and  colorations  in  the 
Moorish  faience,  and  from  such  monuments  as  the 
third  mirhdb  of  the  cathedral  of  Cordova. 

The  process  termed  estofado  may,  generally  speak- 
ing, be  taken  to  mean  the  preparation  of  the  surfaces 
to  be  treated  before  painting  and  gilding,  especially  in 
its  application  to  draperies  by  the  laying  of  colour  on 
a  gilt  ground  and  tracing  on  it  *  estofado,'  fine  designs. 
In  wood  figures  the  carving  is  executed  in  a  somewhat 
summary  manner,  for  though  the  decorator  must 
have  a  perfectly  smooth  surface  to  work  upon,  the 
wood  itself  is  destined  to  disappear  under  successive 
layers  of  white  and  varnishes.  The  estofador  worked 
with  the  dorador :  gold  on  colour,  colour  on  gold,  the 
patterns  applied  to  the  metal  with  roulettes,  punches, 
and  other  tools  of  the  kind,  giving  to  the  representa- 
tion of  stuffs  and  tissues,  in  this  manner,  the  shimmer- 
ing, scintillating  effect  of  rich  damasks.  The  southern 
temperament  of  the  Spaniard,  still  further  influenced 
by  oriental  associations,  revelled  in  such  rich  displays. 
In  the  early  days  the  ensaniblador  or  trazador  was  the 
architect  in  chief,  and  had  under  him  sculptors, 
draughtsmen,  decorators,  master  carpenter,  and  master 
mason,  but  not  the  painters,  gilders,  and  estofadores. 
The  imngiyieros  were  the  sculptors,  who  worked  from 
the  designs  supplied  them  by  the  trazador,  the  encar- 
nadores  were  the  flesh  painters,  the  estofadores  the 
painters  of  stuffs  or  draperies  ;  the  encarnadores  rank- 

275 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

ing  higher  than  the  last  named.  The  doradores  were 
the  gilders.  With  the  proper  tools  the  layer  of  colour 
on  the  ground  of  gold  was  traced  through  so  as  to 
expose  the  metal  in  parts,  thus  forming  the  designs  of 
the  stuffs  to  be  imitated,  at  the  same  time  that  divers 
effects  of  tonality  could  be  produced.  Reliefs  were  also 
applied  on  the  dead  gold  ground,  the  term  estofar 
implying  the  method  of  representing  rich  stuffs  and 
damasks,  so  that  the  saintly  personages  should  be 
clothed  in  the  most  magnificent  garments.  Francisco 
Pacheco,  in  his  Arte  de  la  pintura  (1649),  gives  long 
details  of  all  the  methods  of  polychroming  sculpture, 
with  recipes  for  colours,  varnishes,  gilding,  and  the  rest, 
and  almost  a  treatise  on  the  then  vexed  question  of  the 
respective  merits  of  highly  polished  and  matt  effects. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  when  painting  in  Spain 
acquired  a  national  and  individual  character,  the  system 
changed.  Draperies  were  copied  from  nature,  and  real 
stuffs  used  instead  of  painting,  pushing  the  practice  of 
imitative  realism  to  the  last  extreme.  Figures  of  the 
latter  kind  are  known  as  ijnagines  de  vestir,  and  no 
doubt  the  practice,  common  to  this  day,  had  an  early 
origin.  An  image,  said  to  have  been  given  by  St. 
Louis  of  France,  is  in  the  Capilla  Real  of  the  cathedral 
of  Seville.  Jointed  limbs  and  mechanism  to  move 
them  are  frequently  to  be  found.  Yet  although  the 
artist  had  sometimes  little  more  to  do  than  the  paint- 
ing of  the  face  and  hands,  the  greatest  ones  did  not 
disdain  giving  their  assistance,  and  the  colouring  of 
the  flesh  received  as  much  care  in  details  as  a  miniature 
portrait.  If  the  chisel  were  wielded  by  a  Montanez, 
a  Roldan,  or  a  Nunez,  an  Alonso  Cano,  a  Pedro  da 
Mena,  or  a  Pacheco,  the  talent  of  the  sculptor  was 
supplemented  by  his  skill  as  a  painter.  The  painter 
Geronimo  Garcia  collaborated  with  the  sculptor  Miguel 
Garcia,  nor  are  the  names  of  Murillo  or  Valdez  Leal, 
amongst  others  in  the  first  rank,  to  be  omitted.  Of 
276 


PASOS 

Cano,  as  a  sculptor,  we  possess  fewer  examples  in 
wood  than  in  stone.  Amongst  the  former  are  the  life- 
sized  crucifix  of  the  high  altar  at  Valencia,  a  little 
St.  Antony  in  the  church  of  St.  Nicholas,  at  Murcia, 
a  St.  Bruno  in  the  Cartuja  of  Granada,  and  a  seated 
figure  of  Elijah  sleeping,  his  head  resting  on  his  hand, 
in  the  church  of  Santo  Thome  at  Toledo.  The  last 
named  is  more  probably  by  Becerra.  In  the  Victoria 
and  Albert  Museum  there  is  a  group  in  painted  terra 
cotta  attributed  to  the  school  of  Cano,  which  is  much 
in  the  style  of  the  Elijah.  Whatever  may  be  the 
measure  of  our  admiration  for  this  style,  concerning 
which  there  is  room  for  difference  of  opinion,  we  may 
take  the  group  as  very  fairly  illustrative  of  Cano  as 
a  wood  sculptor. 

Pasos  are  the  groups  of  figures  representing  scenes 
in  the  Passion,  often  larger  than  life,  which,  to  this 
day,  are  favourites  in  Spain  and  carried  in  processions. 
They  are  frequently  of  the  exaggerated  realistic  type, 
with  real  stuffs  glued  on,  and  eyes  of  glass  and  enamel : 
horrible  pieces  of  anatomy,  with  gaping  wounds  and 
other  evidences  of  torments,  in  which  the  passion  for 
realism  and  of  truth  in  art  is  pushed  to  its  ultimate 
limits.  Yet  many  still  existing  are  the  work  of 
Montanez,  who  made  several  for  the  different  churches 
of  Seville,  which  are  still  used  in  the  Holy  Week 
ceremonies.  Others,  at  Valladolid,  are  by  Gregorio 
Hernandez  (1566- 1636)  and  Juan  de  Juni  (d.  1586),  at 
Murcia  by  Salcillo.  There  is  one  in  the  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum  by  Risueno,  a  pupil  of  Cano.  Some 
dispute  seems  to  have  arisen  in  the  seventeenth  century 
with  regard  to  the  relative  merits  of  the  painting  of 
sculpture  in  general,  and  on  the  question  of  matt  or 
polished  surfaces.  Pacheco,  the  father-in-law  and 
master  of  Velasquez,  in  his  Arte  de  la  pintura,  abuses 
the  'vulgar  enamellers.'  'What  audacity,'  says  he, 
'  have  those  who  say  that  painting  on  a  plane  surface  is 

277 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  culminating  point  of  the  arts,  and  that,  as  to  paint- 
ing the  flesh  of  a  statue,  they  could  do  it  better  with 
their  feet  than  the  specialists  could  with  their  hands ! ' 

Though  of  late  date,  a  short  mention  must  be  made 
of  Gregorio  Hernandez.  Born  in  1566,  he  is  con- 
sidered, by  M.  Paul  Lafond,  as  one  of  the  purest  glories 
of  Spanish  sculptural  art.  There  is  a  Mater  Dolorosa 
by  him  in  the  chapel  of  La  Cruz,  Valladolid  (not  men- 
tioned, however,  by  Lafond),  which  in  the  opinion  of 
many  is  his  chef-d'oeuvre.  Unfortunately,  as  in  the  case 
of  so  much  other  church  statuary  in  Spain,  it  is  made 
ridiculous  by  the  additions  of  monstrous  crowns  and 
draperies.  We  may  not  like,  perhaps,  the  tears  of  glass 
encrusted  in  the  wood,  but,  after  all,  such  methods 
have  ancient  authority,  and  from  the  accounts  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  were  practised  by  Pheidias 
or  Antenor.  Amongst  the  very  few  examples  of  the 
work  of  Spanish  wood  sculptors  in  the  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum,  is  a  curious  small  relief  attributed  to 
Berruguete,  representing  St.  Sebastian.  The  whole 
of  the  exposed  parts  of  the  body  of  the  martyr,  and  of 
the  little  angel  who  accompanies  him,  is  covered  with 
seed  pearls  arranged  and  tinted  so  as  to  suggest  actual 
flesh.  The  drapery  and  other  adjuncts  are  sprinkled 
with  powdered  glass  and  minute  fragments  of  coral  and 
tinsel.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  this  work,  which 
shows  great  labour  and  ingenuity,  there  is  also  art 
of  a  kind — indeed,  of  considerable  merit.  But  one 
hardly  knows  how  to  characterize  it  or  what  to  think 
of  it. 


278 


CHAPTER     XV 

WOOD  SCULPTURE  IN  ENGLAND  IN  THE  THIRTEENTH, 
FOURTEENTH,  AND  FIFTEENTH  CENTURIES- 
COFFERS,  CHESTS,  AND  PANELLINGS— SEPUL- 
CHRAL   EFFIGIES   AND   SMALL   FIGURE   WORK 

IF  we  look  at  a  map  of  the  English  dioceses  in  the 
twelfth  century,  such  as  Mr.  Edmund  Prior 
gives  us  in  his  History  of  Gothic  Art  in 
England,  it  is  impossible  to  help  being  struck  by  the 
astounding  activity  displayed  in  the  building  of 
cathedrals,  of  abbeys,  and  of  magnificent  parish 
churches  in  those  early  days  of  the  revival  of  the  arts. 
Starting  from  the  south  and  progressing  towards  the 
north  we  find — to  name  but  a  few  only — Salisbury 
(1130),  Ford  Abbey  and  Wimborne  (1145),  Bristol 
(1150),  Wells  (1170),  Glastonbury  (1185),  Gloster 
(1170),  Lichfield  (1190),  Shrewsbury  (1180),  Canter- 
bury (1175),  St.  Albans  (1200);  and,  in  the  north, 
York,  Kirkstall,  Fountains,  and  many  more.  The 
succeeding  century  was  the  golden  age  of  English 
Gothic.  Henry  in.,  on  his  accession  in  12 16,  rebuilds 
Westminster  Abbey,  Lincoln  is  completed,  Wells  and 
Salisbury  also.  To  add  to  our  astonishment  we  may 
remember  that  the  whole  population  of  England  at 
that  time  amounted  to  less  than  three  millions. 
Doubtless  these  magnificent  edifices  became  treasure- 
houses  of  sculpture  of  all  kinds.  The  fabrics  them- 
selves, so  far  as  the  architectural  sculpture  in  stone 
is  concerned,  are  still  open  to  our  admiration.      But 

279 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

of  the  wonders  of  gold  and  silversmiths'  work,  of 
enamelled  and  jewelled  shrines,  of  embroidered  vest- 
ments, and  all  the  profusion  of  ecclesiastical  ornaments 
which  the  inventories  we  possess  testify  to  have 
existed,  hardly  a  trace  remains  even  in  our  museums 
and  private  collections.  After  the  great  period  of 
unexampled  activity  there  may  have  been  one  of 
quiescence.  When  we  remember  the  scanty  population 
of  England,  and  the  consequences  of  such  inflictions 
of  plague  as  the  Black  Death  of  1368,  we  must  take 
into  account  also  the  unquiet  state  of  the  kingdom, 
which  called  many  to  arms.  There  were  the  Crusades, 
and  the  troubles  with  Scotland,  the  invasions  of 
France,  and  finally,  in  mid -fifteenth  century,  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses,  at  the  termination  of  which,  thirty 
years  later,  under  Henry  vii.,  tranquillity  was  restored. 
Prosperity  reigned  again,  and  the  king,  bringing  over 
Torrigiano  and  other  foreign  artists,  gave  a  fresh 
impulse  to  church  decoration.  And,  notwithstanding 
the  destructions  and  alterations  they  have  undergone, 
the  choirs  and  stall-work  of  numberless  of  our  churches 
can  still  show,  also,  that  there  were  native  carvers  of 
excellent  skill  and  taste.  The  later  designs  were 
perhaps  furnished  by  the  introducers  of  the  new 
fashions,  but  in  deviations  here  and  there,  and  in 
special  national  characteristics,  there  is  manifold 
evidence  of  English  workmanship.  We  shall  note 
this  when  we  come  to  consider  the  screen-work  of  the 
West  of  England. 

Other  nations  have  suffered  from  invasions  and 
from  the  horrors  and  impieties  of  revolutions,  but  none 
more  than  ourselves  from  iconoclasm  in  the  name  of 
religion.  The  small  number,  then,  of  existing  examples 
of  images  and  of  decorative  work  of  all  kinds  in  such  a 
perishable  and  intrinsically  valueless  material  as  wood 
is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at.  For  English  figure- 
sculpture  we  are  left  very  much  to  conjecture.  No 
280 


ENGLAND 

doubt  the  art  of  wood-carving  followed  the  same  lines 
in  England  as  in  France  and  elsewhere,  and  we  may 
safely  conclude  that  at  a  period  when  Gothic  art  had 
reached  its  highest  development,  and  was  characterized 
by  extreme  refinement,  England  was  capable  of  holding 
its  own  with  any  other  country.  The  invasion,  in 
force,  of  foreign  artists  was  not  until  later.  For  if  the 
stone-carvers  could  design  and  execute  such  richness  of 
arch  and  pillar,  niche  and  gable  as  we  find,  for  one 
instance  only,  in  the  west  front  of  Wells,  and  could 
cover  them  with  admirable  statuary,  it  would  not  be 
surprising  that  equally  in  wood  they  should  fill  with 
figures  the  elaborate  choir-work  and  rood-screens  which 
adorned  every  cathedral  and  parish  church.  Yet  in  a 
general  way  it  is  not,  perhaps,  improbable  that  the 
English  mediaeval  craftsman  in  wood  was  more  dis- 
tinguished as  a  hucher  than  as  an  image  maker,  and 
that  either  the  foreigner  was  called  in  to  work,  and 
perhaps  to  settle  in  this  country,  or  that  considerable 
importations  were  ordered  from  abroad. 

In  the  few  examples  which  remain  to  us  there  must 
be  always  some  little  difficulty  in  distinguishing  original 
native  work  from  the  imported,  from  that  copied  from 
other  sources,  or  made  in  the  country  by  foreign  artists, 
themselves  influenced  by  the  surroundings  in  which 
they  found  themselves.  There  must  always  be  a 
distinct  difference  between  the  work  which  such  im- 
ported labour  produces  from  its  own  genius  and  that 
which  it  forms  under  the  direction  of  native  artists  or 
to  suit  the  tastes  of  its  employers.  There  was,  of 
course,  much  copying.  Designs  from  foreign  examples 
were  repeated  over  and  over  again,  modified  or  slightly 
varied,  making  it  difficult  to  be  accurate  as  to  dates  or 
origin  :  for  example,  in  the  microscopic  piece  of  wood- 
carving  in  the  Waddesdon  collection  of  the  British 
Museum,  which  is  there  labelled  as  English  of  the 
thirteenth    century.      The    striking    characteristic    of 

281 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

English  work  is  its  solidity  and  thoroughness,  sugges- 
tive of  the  national  character — contented  with  what  is 
sufficient,  correct,  plain-speaking,  with  a  certain  severity 
and  heaviness  of  structure,  and  timid  of  giving  an 
impression  of  showing  off.  As  in  other  sculpture  there 
would  probably  have  been  more  analogy  in  the  thir- 
teenth and  early  fourteenth  centuries  to  the  French 
than  in  the  fifteenth,  when  a  misapplication  of  Flemish, 
and  a  multitude  of  other  foreign  influences,  brought 
about  a  more  expansive  style,  tending  to  the  extravagant 
and  even  vulgar.  There  is  a  want  of  invention — a 
fondness  for  repetition  as  in  the  rows  of  similar  figures 
of  angels,  or  of  other  figures  under  canopies.  Yet 
Gothic  art  was  peculiarly  adaptable  to  English  senti- 
ment, and  predominated  amongst  us  long  after  its 
absolute  disappearance  everywhere  on  the  Continent, 
except,  perhaps,  in  Germany. 

Unfortunately,  with  the  exception  of  the  rood- 
screens,  bench-ends,  and  font-covers  ;  of  the  wooden 
sepulchral  effigies,  and  of  some  isolated  chests  and 
fewer  images,  which  escaped  the  searching  destruction 
of  probably  innumerable  fine  examples,  the  material 
with  which  we  have  to  deal  is  meagre  indeed.  We 
have  to  gather  what  light  we  can  from  old  chronicles 
and  inventories,  and  in  these  there  is  often  ample 
evidence  of  a  wealth  of  carved  work  in  wood.  In  the 
Rites  of  Durham  we  read  of  the  '  Nine  Altars '  in  the 
cathedral,  and  are  told  that  '  all  the  foresaid  nine  altars 
had  their  several  shrines  and  covers  of  wainscot  over- 
head .  .  .  having  likewise  between  every  altar  a  very 
fair  and  large  partition  of  wainscot  with  fine  branches 
and  flowers  and  other  imagery-work  most  finely  and 
artificially  pictured  and  gilded,  containing  the  several 
lockers  or  aumbres  for  the  safe  keeping  of  the  vestments 
and  ornaments.'  There  was  the  great  shrine  of  St. 
Cuthbert  also,  '  the  cover  which  drew  up  being  of 
wainscote,  having  on  the  top  from  end  to  end  most  fine 
282 


DESTRUCTIONS    IN    ENGLAND 

carved  work  cut  out  with  dragons  and  other  beasts 
most  artificially  wrought.'  There  are  references  again 
to  many  other  'almeries  of  fine  wainscot  with  little 
images,  ver)'  seemly  and  beautiful  to  behold.'  And, 
once  more,  we  are  told  of  the  monks'  pews  or  carrells 
in  the  cloisters,  'very  close,  all  but  the  forepart  which 
had  carved  work  which  gave  light  in  at  their  carrell 
doors  of  wainscot.'  We  may  take  it  that  the  term 
'wainscot'  refers  also  to  tabernacle  work  in  the  fashion 
of  the  Flemish  and  German  retables,  and  that  these 
also,  either  of  native  work  or  imported,  abounded  in 
our  cathedral  and  parish  churches.  From  the  same 
interesting  book  we  learn  also  of  the  '  picture  of  our 
Lady,  so  called  the  Lady  of  Boulton,  made  to  open  with 
gymells  from  her  breast  downward.  And  within  the 
image  was  wrought  the  image  of  our  Saviour,  marvelous 
finely  gilted,  holding  betwixt  his  hands  a  fair  and  large 
crucifix  all  of  gold,  the  which  crucifix  was  to  be  taken 
forth  every  Good  Friday,  and  every  man  did  creep  into 
it  that  was  in  that  church  as  that  day.'  The  image  was 
of  the  kind  which  we  now  call  Vierge  ottvrante.  A 
few  examples  in  w^ood  still  exist  on  the  Continent. 

The  destruction  of  images  in  England  in  the  six- 
teenth century  was  so  complete  that  in  all  probability  not 
a  single  saintly  figure  of  importance  in  carved  wood 
could  now  be  found  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land.  In  order  to  understand  the  character  of 
the  finer  work  which  must  have  existed,  we  have  little 
to  guide  us  except  a  reference  to  the  images  in  stone 
which,  for  the  most  part  in  a  mutilated  state,  still  cover 
the  west  fronts  and  gateways  of  our  cathedrals  and 
collegiate  buildings.  Here  and  there  also,  in  a  niche 
on  a  country  church  tower,  there  may  be  a  Madonna 
figure  which  has  escaped  complete  destruction  through 
being  almost  out  of  reach.  Of  the  better  class  in  wood 
there  is  one  example  in  the  fourteenth-century  Pietit 
which  was  found  a  few  years  ago  at  Battlefield,  Shrews- 

283 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

bury.  Unfortunately  it  is  in  an  extremely  dilapidated 
condition.  Still  we  may  gather  sufficiently  to  make 
sure  that  in  its  polychromed  state  it  was  no  doubt 
not  only  a  noble  group,  but  absolutely  English  in 
style  and  execution.  There  still  remain,  on  some 
benches  in  parish  churches,  such  as  the  magnificent  set 
at  Wiggenhall  in  Norfolk,  or  the  somewhat  similar 
ones  at  Walsoken,  Cambridgeshire,  several  unmuti- 
lated  figures  in  the  panels  of  the  ends  or  supporting 
on  either  side  the  massive  poppy-heads.  And,  indeed, 
it  is  to  the  poppy-heads  of  bench-ends,  though  they 
are  but  too  frequently  defaced  and  mutilated,  that 
we  have  to  look  for  the  most  interesting  remnants  of 
English  figure  sculpture.  For  example,  at  Chesterton, 
a  monk  bearing  a  scourge  stands  in  the  centre  of  the 
foliage  work ;  at  Stowlangtoft  it  is  a  preacher  in 
surplice  and  skull-cap,  with  his  open  book  on  the  desk 
before  him  ;  at  Chesterton,  again,  a  man  in  tunic  and 
characteristic  headdress  of  the  time  of  Richard  ii.  ; 
at  Gresford  a  charming  Madonna  figure,  and  in  very 
many  cases  Annunciation  groups  or  figures  of  angels, 
archangels,  and  seraphs.  We  may  be  helped  also  by 
the  ivory  statuettes  of  the  Virgin  and  Child,  of  which 
there  are  several  beautiful  examples  in  the  Victoria 
and  Albert  Museum  and  in  continental  collections. 
More,  indeed,  of  these  are  probably  of  English  origin 
than  has  yet  been  recognized.  In  addition  there  are 
many  figures  in  alabaster  which  are  known  to  be 
English,  and  are,  perhaps,  more  representative  of 
English  style  in  figure  work  than  anything  else  we 
possess.  The  exhibition  of  alabaster  work  organized 
in  the  present  year  by  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  is 
especially  enlightening.  Many  are  magnificent  not 
only  as  sculpture,  but  for  their  polychrome  decoration. 
Amongst  them,  the  beautiful  Annunciation  figure  of 
the  tomb  of  Thomas  Boleyn  at  Wells  (a.d.  1450)  is  of 
the  truly  English  type  of  face,  strongly  influenced 
284 


ENGLISH    MEDIEVAL    ART 

by  the  art  of  the  Netherlands.  Documentary  evidence 
is  abundant  also  of  the  wealth  of  carved  figure  work 
in  stone  and  wood  which  must  have  existed  through- 
out the  land.  To  take  but  one  case,  the  instructions 
for  the  adornment  of  Eton  College  Chapel,  the  details 
of  which  are  fully  set  out  in  the  *  Kynges  own  avyse,'  or 
so  called  will,  preserved  at  Eton.  The  reredos  of  the 
high  altar  was  to  consist  of  figures  in  full  relief,  carved 
and  coloured,  '  a  grate  ymage  of  our  Savyoure  with  the 
xij  Apostles  y  sett  on  every  syde  of  the  same  ymage, 
with  synes  and  tokenes  of  here  passion  and  martir- 
dome,'  and  there  are  particulars  of  many  other  figures. 
The  roodloft  was  to  be  made  '  in  like  manner  and 
fourme  as  be  the  stalls  and  rodeloft  in  the  chapell  of 
Saint  Stephen  atte  Westminster,'  which  was  itself  copied 
from  Winchester.  This  loft  is  expressly  stated  to  be 
used  '  for  redying  and  syngying  and  for  the  organs 
and  other  manere  observance  there  to  be  had  after  the 
Rewles  of  the  churche  of  Salisbury.'  We  may  read, 
too,  of  the  stately  shrine  of  '  Our  Ladye  of  Walsing- 
ham,'  which  drew  multitudes  of  pilgrims  from  all 
parts  :  the  image  of  wood,  as  Erasmus  describes  it,  '  a 
little  image  remarkable  neither  for  size,  material,  nor 
execution.'  In  the  privy  purse  expenses  of  Henry  viii. 
is  an  entry  in  151 1  of  an  offering  made  at  the  shrine, 
at  the  king's  visit,  of  ^^i,  3s.  4d.  In  1538,  by  the 
same  king's  orders,  the  image  was  brought  to  London 
and  there  burnt  at  Chelsea,  with  others,  as  notable, 
from  Ipswich,  Worcester,  and  Willesden,  in  the 
presence  of  Crumwell. 

Or,  we  may  turn  to  but  one  of  our  many  magnificent 
cathedrals  and  parish  churches  whose  choirs,  after  many 
vicissitudes,  show  us  now,  through  the  more  reverent 
care  of  recent  times,  something  of  the  semblance  of  that 
which  they  presented  in  the  days  of  their  full  glory. 
In  the  cathedral  of  Lincoln  there  are,  besides  the 
magnificent    architectural    work    of   the    canopies    and 

285 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

other  adjuncts  of  the  stalls  themselves,  the  misericords 
beneath  the  seats,  than  which,  for  design  and  execution, 
no  finer  set  exists  in  England  :  or,  it  might  even  be 
said,  in  any  other  country.  Amongst  them,  and  most 
remarkable  indeed  for  spirited  drawing  and  equally 
capable  talent  of  the  carver,  one  represents  a  knight  in 
armour  who,  struck  by  an  arrow  which  still  sticks  in 
his  back,  falls  headlong  from  his  horse.  On  another 
corbel-bracket  a  knight,  completely  unhorsed,  lies  pros- 
trate on  the  ground.  In  both  cases  it  was  no  mean 
artist  who  designed  and  executed  the  figures  of  the  men 
and  their  steeds,  which  afford  us  also  such  valuable 
information  regarding  the  habits  and  costumes  of  the 
time.  On  again  another  misericord,  incomparable  are 
the  truly  English  angels  who  swing  their  censers  as 
they  stand  on  the  foliaged  volutes  which  spread  out  on 
either  side  of  the  central  subject.  Not  less  remarkable, 
indeed,  are  the  designs  and  handling  of  these  volutes, 
or  supporters,  when  confined  to  purely  foliage  work 
without  the  addition  of  any  figures  or  storied  imagery. 
And  when  we  consider  the  dearth  of  imagery  which 
confronts  us,  we  may  congratulate  ourselves  on  still 
possessing  the  charming  series  of  panels  which,  equally 
with  those  in  the  spandrels  of  the  architectural  work, 
entitle  the  choir  of  Lincoln  to  its  well-known  appella- 
tion. On  these  are  ten  or  a  dozen  large  figures,  in 
rather  high  relief,  playing  on  musical  instruments  :  on 
harps,  on  various  kinds  of  lutes,  on  a  zither,  on  a  fiddle 
of  quite  modern  form,  on  a  portable  pipe  organ,  on  a 
drum  and  the  rest.  They  sit  on  low  seats  each  beneath 
a  pointed  arch,  their  serious  faces  sweet  in  expression 
under  the  flowing  hair  carefully  arranged  and  bound 
with  a  fillet,  the  well-modelled  bare  feet  showing  in 
every  case,  the  draperies  admirably  disposed,  with  no 
sign  of  mannerism  or  exaggeration  of  the  folds,  the 
attitudes  elegant  and  in  perfect  conformity  with  their 
several  occupations.  They  are  indeed  simple  chefs- 
286 


LINCOLN 

dcKuvre.  Other  panels  bear  figures  of  kings  seated 
and  crowned,  of  a  similar  style,  and  no  less  fine  in 
drawing  and  workmanship.  Finally,  we  have  in  this 
same  choir  a  series  of  quatrefoils  enclosing  figures  of 
saints,  grotesques,  weird  Bestiary  animals  and  little 
scenes,  such  as  a  knight  creeping  stealthily  along  with 
drawn  short  sword  and  shield  for  his  defence,  amongst 
other  figure  work  equally  deserving  of  individual 
attention.  If  even  we  omit  to  add  to  the  above, 
detailed  mention  of  the  variety  and  imagination  dis- 
played in  the  massive  carved  bosses  of  the  groinings, 
and  in  the  poppy-heads  of  the  stalls,  all  characterized 
by  the  same  excellence  of  design  and  execution,  it  may 
be  said  that  in  this  one  cathedral  alone  these  remains 
are  the  pathetic  testimony  that  our  country  could  not 
have  been  behind  others  in  the  arts  of  the  hucher  and 
imaginator  in  wood  sculpture,  and  that  Lincoln,  in  the 
time  of  its  glory  and  of  the  almost  inconceivable  rich- 
ness of  its  treasures  of  which  we  have  evidence  in  its 
inventories,  must  have  been  distinguished  above  all  for 
the  excellence  of  its  woodwork. 

The  story  of  the  insensate  destruction,  the  contempt 
and  hatred  of  things  previously  held  sacred,  has  often 
been  told.  A  few  references  will  suffice  to  recall 
attention  to  this.  Parish  registers  and  churchwardens' 
accounts  give  us  the  history  pretty  plainly,  especially 
in  the  twenty  years  from  1550  to  1570.  One  record  of 
the  county  of  Lincoln  sums  up  the  enumeration  as 
*  the  rest  of  the  trash  and  tromperie  wch  appertaynid 
to  the  popish  service.'  Altarstones,  fonts,  and  other 
pieces  of  stonework  were  broken  and  defaced,  turned 
into  cistern  bottoms,  set  into  fire-hearths,  or  used  for 
mending  walls,  or  laid  in  the  highways  'to  sarve  as 
bridges  for  sheepe  and  cattail  to  go  on,'  books  and 
illuminated  manuscripts  were  torn  up  and  the  vellum 
used  for  haberdashers'  measures  ;  '  some  to  serve  their 
jaykes,    some   to    scoure   their   candlesticks,    some    to 

287 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

rubbe  their  bootes  :  sold  to  grossers  and  sopesellers, 
whole  ships-full  sent  over  the  seas.  1  know  a  merchant 
man  bought  two  noble  libraries  for  40s.  :  kept  him  in 
gray  paper  ten  years'  {IVhitakers  Cath.  Com.,  11. 
P-  355)-  What  wonder  that  an  ample  provision  for  fire- 
wood was  welcomed  in  numberless  images  and  screen- 
work  of  wood !  In  Worcester  Cathedral  candles  and 
ashes  were  still  hallowed  till  1547,  but  in  the  same 
year  the  first  step  was  made,  in  the  order  to  destroy  all 
images.  In  the  following  year,  'creeping'  to  the  cross 
is  abolished,  and  the  old  books  burned.  In  1551  the 
high  altar  was  removed  in  accordance  with  the  in- 
junction to  have  plain  tables  of  wood  everywhere. 
Under  Edward  vi.  all  images  which  had  been  abused 
with  pilgrimages  were  ordered  to  be  taken  down  and 
destroyed.  On  17th  November  'at  nyghte  was  pullyd 
downe  the  Rode  in  Powles  with  Mary  and  John  with 
all  the  ymages  in  the  churche.  Item,  also,  at  that 
time  was  pullyd  downe  thorow  alle  the  Kynges 
domynion  in  every  churche  alle  Roddes  with  alle 
images  and  every  precher  preched  in  their  sermons 
agayne  alle  images.'  Archbishops  and  bishops  made 
strict  inquiries.  Thus  Archbishop  Grindall  in  1576, 
^  whether  your  roodlofts  be  taken  down  and  altered,  so 
that  the  upper  part  thereof  with  the  soller  or  loft  be 
quite  taken  down  unto  the  crossbeam  and  that  the  said 
beam  have  some  convenient  crest  put  upon  the  same.' 
In  the  '  Rites  of  Durham,'  we  read  that  '  two  holy 
water  stones  were  taken  away  by  Dean  Whitingham, 
and  carried  into  his  kitchen,  in  which  stones  they  did 
steep  their  beef  and  salt  fish.'  And  in  1650  that  'when 
the  Scots  were  sent  prisoners  from  Dunbar  and  put 
prisoners  into  the  church  they  burnt  up  all  the  wood- 
work, in  regard  they  had  no  coals  allowed  them.'  In 
the  first  year  of  Elizabeth  the  high  altar,  roodloft,  and 
images  were  again  taken  down,  and  'on  the  eve  of  St. 
Bartholomew  the  day  and  morrow  after  were  burned  in 
288 


VANDALISM 

Paules  churchyard,  and  in  some  places  the  copes,  vest- 
ments, and  altarclothes,  books,  banners,  sepulchres, 
and  roodlofts  were  likewise  committed  to  the  fire  and 
so  consumed  to  ashes.'  Under  the  Commonwealth 
soldiers  were  quartered  in  Westminster  Abbey,  where 
'  they  brake  down  the  rails  about  the  altar  and  burnt 
it  :  they  brake  doun  the  organ  and  pawned  the  pipes 
for  ale  :  they  put  on  some  of  the  singing  men's  surplices, 
and  in  contempt  of  the  canonical  habit  ran  up  and 
down  the  church  :  he  that  wore  the  surplice  was  the 
hare,  the  rest  the  hounds.'  In  the  churchwardens' 
accounts  of  1566  of  the  parish  of  Belton,  near  Grant- 
ham, we  find  *  Imprimis  a  roodloft  taken  doun  and 
part  of  it  given  to  poor  folkes  and  other  parte  occupied 
about  the  mending  of  the  pinfold  yeates  and  the 
churchyard  yeates.'  At  Croxby  '  Roode  Marie  &  John 
were  burned  the  last  yere  (1565)  to  make  a  plummer 
fire  which  mended  ye  churche  leades.'  In  other  cases 
'  to  make  barres  and  railes  for  a  bridge '  :  to  '  make 
window  frames,'  'a  weaver's  loom,'  *  a  well  poste  and 
such  like  things,'  '  doors  and  chests,'  *  a  Joyce  tree  for 
a  chamber  '  and  '  bed  ceilings  ' :  of  a  sacring  bell  they 
made  '  a  horse  belle  to  hang  at  a  horse's  head  ' :  '  of  a 
holy  water  vat  of  stone  our  vicaire  hathe  made  a 
swines'  trough  of.' 

In  quite  recent  times,  that  is,  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  vandalism,  neglect,  and  bad  taste  worked  still 
more  havoc  on  what  remained.  Mr.  Waller,  writing  in 
1845,  says  that  the  Horkesley  wooden  effigies  were 
recently  displaced  and  put  out  of  sight  in  a  corner  near 
the  porch.  In  Ouarendon  Chapel,  near  Aylesbury,  in 
the  chancel  among  a  heap  of  rubbish,  lay  the  fragments 
of  the  alabaster  effigies  of  Sir  Henry  Lee  of  Ditchley 
and  his  lady.  Brasses  were  torn  up  and  allowed  to  lie 
about.  In  1839  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster,  was 
rotting  with  damp  and  neglect.  These  are  but  samples 
of  a  state  of  things  which  might  be  multiplied  to  any 
T  289 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

extent.  Then  came  what  was  called  *  restoration,' 
which  worked  worse  havoc  still,  for  the  effects  are  still 
before  our  eyes.  We  might  indeed  think  better  of 
some  architects,  with  distinguished  names,  of  those 
days,  if  there  had  remained  no  ancient  material  at  all. 

There  is  one  division  of  the  art  of  working  in  wood 
in  which  England  excelled  above  all  other  countries. 
This  is  in  the  magnificent  timber  roofs  which  still 
adorn  many  of  our  country  churches  and  some  of  our 
cathedrals.  But  it  is  a  subject  which  would  require 
special  and  lengthy  treatment.  There  are  very  fine 
examples  throughout  England.  To  recall  but  a  few 
haphazard,  we  have  St.  Stephen's  at  Norwich,  St.  Mary's 
at  Devizes,  Westminster  Hall,  St.  Mary's  at  Bury  St. 
Edmunds  with  its  many  figures  of  prophets,  apostles, 
saints,  and  whole  length  figures  of  angels,  Warmington 
(Northants),  Lincoln,  with  its  elaborate  bosses,  Selby, 
Crosby  Hall,  Hampton  Court,  the  painted  wood  groin- 
ing of  the  choir  of  St.  Albans,  or  the  magnificent  roof 
in  Irish  bog-oak  of  St.  David's — even  a  list  would  fill 
pages  if  we  should  mention  but  the  parish  churches  of 
the  counties  of  Devon  and  Somerset.  From  mid- 
thirteenth  century,  and  in  the  reign  of  Edward  iii.  and 
his  successors,  the  use  of  wood  for  roofs  became  more 
general  owing  to  the  greater  security  of  the  times  and 
the  disuse  of  fortresses.  They  were,  as  in  the  case  of 
other  work  in  wood,  imitative  of  stone  sculpture.  In 
the  thirteenth  century  Henry  iii.  ordered  for  St. 
George's  Chapel,  Windsor,  a  wooden  roof,  *  like  the  new 
work  at  Lichfield,  to  appear  like  stonework  with  good 
ceiling  and  painting.'  Carpenter's  work  was,  in  fact,  to 
continue  long  dependent  on  the  mason.  Roofs  and 
screens  were  imitations  in  wood  of  existing  stonework, 
with  its  vaultings,  groinings,  and  traceried  fenestrages. 
And  we  must  not  forget  the  painted  panels  of  honour 
over  the  roods  in  Devon  :  usually  a  blue  ground  with 
elaborately  carved  ribs,  and  bosses  of  stars  picked  out 
290 


PLATE  .\L\'l 


1,2,3.  a\{;p:i,  and  skraimiim.    kwki.mi',  (  ihkc  ii,  oxon 
1.  •■>.  an<;I':ls.    from  rook  ok  iiAriiiKi.KicH  church,    hkvon  I'.N(;i.isii.    iir  i  i  i.ni  ii  cknturv 


I'Al.K    ..     I 


ANGELS 

in  gold  and  colour:  or  the  entire  ceilings  of  a  similar 
kind,  which  abound  in  the  churches  of  small  provincial 
towns,  as  for  example  at  Shepton  Mallet.  Besides  the 
more  elaborate  ones,  very  numerous  are  those  of  the 
simple  parish  churches  such  as  we  find  throughout 
Devon,  with  their  cofferdams  of  the  waggon  roofs, 
brilliant  with  colour,  and  the  angels  of  the  hammer-beams 
and  wall-plates,  sometimes  rudely  carved,  and  roughly 
painted  in  white  albs  and  bearing  shields.  Most 
curious  and  richly  carved  and  painted  were  the  bosses 
at  the  intersections.  There  are  dozens  of  them  of  large 
size  and  ponderous  weight,  thrown  in  a  heap  at  St. 
Saviour's  Cathedral,  South wark.  We  may  class  and 
compare  them  with  the  misericords  of  the  choir  stalls. 
And,  again,  everywhere  abound  the  typically  English 
angels,  sometimes  simple  village  work,  at  others,  of 
real  merit  as  sculpture,  as  at  Cullompton  and  Ewelme 
(Plate  XLVi.)  or  at  Lincoln :  bearing  shields  with 
emblems  of  the  Passion,  or  in  later  times,  with  coats 
of  arms. 

No  doubt  such  figures  as  the  angels  were  to  a  great 
extent  a  commercial  production,  turned  out  to  pattern 
by  the  hundred.  But  the  motive  is  characteristic  of 
fifteenth-century  English  art,  and  patterns  ordered  from 
some  famous  workshop  or  renowned  sculptor  of  the 
towns  were  probably  copied  more  or  less  intelli- 
gently and  well  by  the  untrained  village  artist  in  the 
building  of  his  own  church  in  which  so  much  pride 
was  taken.  So  it  is  that  we  find  them  frequently 
hovering,  as  it  were,  among  the  roof  timbers,  or 
capping  in  rows  the  cornices  of  parcloses  and  screens, 
as,  for  example,  in  the  charming  series  of  crowned  ones 
bearing  scrolls  in  St.  George's  Chapel,  Windsor,  along 
a  cornice  at  Exeter,  or  along  the  top  of  the  parclose 
screen  at  Cullompton.  At  Cawston  and  Wymondham 
in  Norfolk  the  angels  are  of  large  size,  spreading  their 
broad  wings  eight  or  ten   feet  across.      Best  known, 

291 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

perhaps,  of  all  are  the  angels  in  the  spandrels  of  the 
'  Angel  choir '  of  Lincoln.  But  they  may  not  properly 
be  called  English,  nor  are  they  of  wood.  Stone  carving 
apart,  if  the  English  carvers  in  wood  loved  this  angel 
motive,  what  they  could  do  in  the  way  of  demons  is 
illustrated  by  those  of  the  bench-ends  of  Ashcombe  to 
which  reference  is  made  in  a  succeeding  chapter. 

The  angel  figures  at  Ewelme,  Oxfordshire,  are  twelve 
in  number,  attired  in  tunics  or  cassocks  with  collars 
and  girdled  surplices.  Their  wings  are  spread,  and  all 
are  crowned  with  fleur-de-lis  crowns.  But  among  them 
four  are  seraphs,  in  the  close-fitting  costume  of  feathers, 
resembling  tights,  which — coming  from  the  East — 
seems  to  have  been  a  representation  especially  favoured 
in  England.  Seraphs  or  angels  of  this  kind  are 
frequent  on  bench-ends,  either  on  the  panels  or  among 
the  foliage  of  the  poppy-heads.  Angels  figure  upon 
those  of  South  Brent  and  Swavesey,  amongst  numerous 
others  which  might  be  cited.  At  Southwold  a  pair  of 
very  beautiful  angels  support  on  their  outstretched 
wings  a  small  projecting  gallery.  A  stall-end  in 
Chester  Cathedral  has  on  it  a  quaint  Annunciation 
group,  in  which  the  Virgin  and  an  angel  in  the  tight- 
fitting  feather  dress  kneel  on  each  side  of  a  vase  hold- 
ing lilies.  On  bench-ends  at  Warkworth  and  at 
East  Brent,  the  angel  is  attired  in  a  similar  fashion  in 
Annunciation  groups,  and  on  a  fine  bench-end  at 
St.  Mary's,  Haverfordwest,  the  archangel,  so  clothed, 
with  uplifted  sword  stands  on  the  dragon.  An  example 
of  pure  village  work,  from  Hatherleigh,  is  included  in 
our  illustrations.  But  the  whole  subject  is  one  which, 
as  regards  England  alone,  would  well  repay  a  lengthened 
study. 

Coffers  and  parish  chests  belong,  strictly  speaking, 

rather  to  furniture  than  to  that  divison  of  woodwork  to 

which  our  attention  has  been  especially  directed.     To 

appreciate  properly  their  value  as  specimens  of  carving 

292 


CHESTS    AND    COFFERS 

would  entail,  also,  more  space  than  it  is  possible  now 
to  devote  to  them.  Although  we  should  find  on  them 
from  time  to  time  very  interesting  examples  of  figure 
work  and  of  bas-reliefs  of  a  similar  character  to  those 
of  the  joudes  and  stalls,  and  the  like,  still,  as  a  rule,  we 
should  have  to  consider  them  as  panels  and  panelling 
generally,  and,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mullioned 
architectural  tracery  and  flamboyant  fenestrages,  which 
are  so  frequently  used,  we  should  be  led  into  side  paths 
further  than  our  present  limits  will  allow.  There  are 
also  the  questions  of  their  form,  construction,  and 
origins,  and  of  the  variety  of  the  patterns  of  the  panels 
amongst  which  that  known  as  the  linen  pattern  is  not 
one  of  the  least  interesting.  Our  remarks,  therefore, 
must  be  confined  to  a  few  considerations,  only,  to 
accompany  the  two  illustrations  here  given.  The  chest 
or  coffer  was  the  principal  object  of  domestic  furniture  of 
the  early  Middle  Ages,  and  was  made  to  serve  all  kinds 
of  purposes  :  as  a  coffer  for  storing  garments  or  valu- 
ables, a  table,  chair,  bench,  and  even  bedstead  ;  some- 
times, when  of  large  size,  a  standing  wardrobe.  Bahut, 
or  huche,  is  the  frequently  recurring  French  term  in  old 
documents,  whence  we  have  the  trade  of  the  hticher — 
furniture-makers  who  separated  as  a  corporation  from 
the  master  carpenters  of  architectural  work  about  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

Without  taking  into  account  ancient  Egyptian 
coffers  of  which  specimens  in  sycamore,  acacia,  tama- 
risk, cedar,  and  other  fragrant  woods  abound,  the 
oldest  existing  examples  of  this  piece  of  furniture  are  a 
sort  of  long  trough  or  box  with  a  lid,  roughly  chipped 
out  of  the  trunk  of  a  tree — the  dug-out  class  of  hutch 
as  we  may  call  them.  Examples  are  not  lacking  in 
most  museums,  and,  indeed,  are  to  be  found  of  dates 
so  late  as  the  fourteenth  century.  Of  this  hollowed 
tree-trunk  kind,  often  bound  and  clamped  with  iron, 
we  have  in  English  country  churches  not  a  few  still 

293 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

existing  specimens.  They  are  not  seldom  of  con- 
siderable dimensions  (the  one  at  Cudworth,  Warwick- 
shire, is  ten  feet  long  and  of  great  thickness),  the 
cavity  itself  very  small,  and  there  are  frequently  slits 
for  money.  In  an  inventory  of  goods  belonging  to  St. 
Mary's,  Warwick  (a.d.  1464),  there  is  a  quaint  reference 
to  their  cumbrous  form  :  '  Item,  in  the  vestrye,  i  grete 
olde  arke  to  put  in  vestments,  i  olde  irebounde  cofre.' 
An  early  example, carved  with  subjects — amongst  others, 
birds,  beasts,  and  human  figures — is  in  the  cathedral  of 
Terracina,  and  has  been  ascribed  to  the  ninth,  or  even 
eighth  century.  It  is  probably  a  much  later  copy  of 
some  Oriental  models. 

As  there  has  already  been  occasion  to  remark,  most 
furniture  of  the  Romanesque  and  Romanesque-Gothic 
period  was  decorated  in  low  relief,  incised  in  the  champ- 
lev6  manner.  But,  for  our  chests,  there  is  little  to  go 
by,  as  there  is  no  existing  piece  earlier  than  the  twelfth 
century.  The  scarcity  of  any  kind  of  Gothic-English 
work  in  wood  has  already  been  noted,  although,  doubt- 
less, much  was  made,  for  statutes  exist  of  the  time  of 
Richard  iii.,  prohibiting,  in  the  interests  of  the  native 
industry,  importations  from  abroad.  Of  the  thirteenth 
century  it  is  not  surprising,  for  reasons  that  have 
already  been  shown,  that  there  should  be  a  penury  of 
examples  of  decorated  work.  On  this  account  the 
specimens  of  this  most  useful — and,  for  that  reason, 
longer  preserved — article  of  furniture  of  the  period 
named,  which  still  remain  in  our  cathedrals  and 
churches  to  the  number  of  over  a  hundred,  are  the 
more  valuable.  Of  these,  with  regard  to  the  con- 
struction and  method  of  attaching  the  lid,  we  may 
distinguish  two  groups — the  pin-hinge  style  and  the 
strap-hinge,  and  these  peculiarities  are  useful  to  note 
in  cases  of  dating.  Shortly  stated,  in  the  pin-hinge 
method  the  top  bars  attached  to  the  ends  of  the  lid, 
and  rising  with  it,  are  fastened  by  pins  passing 
294 


CHESTS    AND    COFFERS 

through  tenons  to  slots  in  the  back  posts,  the  tops  of 
the  latter  being  rounded  so  that  the  lid-rails  slide 
easily  over  them.  It  is  not  found  in  English  examples 
later  than  the  thirteenth  century,  and  not  in  any  of 
those  with  panel  fronts  decorated  with  tracery.  Some- 
times the  chests  have  a  false  bottom,  or  secret  compart- 
ments with  lids,  as  in  sailors'  or  old-fashioned  school 
chests.  Of  these  early  English  chests  made  for  church 
purposes,  one  of  the  best  known,  and  probably  the 
earliest,  is  the  one  at  Stoke  d'Abernon.  As  was 
usual,  it  is  of  oak,  of  very  plain  and  somewhat 
unusual  form  (something  like  a  pedestal  writing-table), 
with  a  simple  incised  decoration  of  three  circular 
ornaments  of  a  geometrical  pattern.  These  curious 
whorls  or  roundels  of  chip-carving,  with  starlike  or 
geometrical  patterns,  are  found,  again,  in  the  fine 
fourteenth-century  chest  of  Faversham  Church  in 
Kent.  The  motive  is,  of  course,  derived  from  the 
East,  and  from  the  intercourse  with  Syria  at  the  time 
of  the  Crusades.  The  six-pointed  star,  so  often  met 
with  in  the  ruins  of  the  magnificent  religious  edifices 
of  that  province^  and  in  small  work,  such  as  the  ivory 
caskets  of  the  Veroli  kind,  is  itself  derived  from  still 
further  east.  The  Stoke  d'Abernon  chest  has  an 
ingenious  secret  cavity.  The  date  is  probably  from 
1 200  to  1220. 

It  was  not  until  the  fourteenth  century  that  the 
practice  began  of  forming  the  fronts  of  chests  by  a 
framework  enclosing  a  number  of  panels,  carved  as 
a  rule  with  traceried  fenestrages,  or  with  the  linen 
pattern.  Others,  as  in  the  case  of  the  fine  Alnwick 
chest,  have  no  traceried  decoration,  but  are  carved 
with  hunting  subjects,  all  of  a  secular  character. 
Or,  again,  there  is  that  most  beautiful  oak  coffer  at 
Brancepeth  Church,  Northumberland,  of  the  perpendi- 
cular period  carved  with  tracery,  foliage,  and  chimeras. 
May  not  this,  however,  be  due  to  a  Flemish  hand  or 

295 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

importation?     Other  English  chests,  however  French 
in  inspiration,  are  undoubtedly  of  English  execution. 

Chests  of  the  thirteenth  century  with  figure  subjects 
are,  of  any  country,  excessively  scarce.      The  famous 
coffer  of  the  Cluny  Museum,  formerly  in  the  Gerente 
collection,  is  doubly  interesting  on  this  account,  and  if 
not  of  the  thirteenth  it  is  certainly  not  later  than  the 
first  quarter  of  the  fourteenth  century,  if  the  shoulder 
pieces  of  the  armour,  which  went  out  of  fashion  about 
that  time,   are  a  criterion.     On   the  front  panels  are 
twelve  armed  knights  standing  in  niches  beneath  early 
ogival  canopies.     One  bears  on  his  shield  the  leopards 
of  England.      The  subjects  on  the  end  are  of  rather 
a   free   character.      English  chests  of  the   fourteenth 
century  are  to   be  found   in    many  of  our   churches. 
They  are,   naturally,  of  the  florid  style  of  the  time. 
Among  fine  examples  are  those  of  Alnwick,  Brance- 
peth,  Hacconby,  Huttoft,  St.  Peter's  at  Derby,  Wath, 
St.  Mary  Magdalen  at  Oxford,  Chevington,  Faversham, 
and    Rainham.      The   term    *  Flanders   chest '    is   one 
which  frequently  occurs  in  wills  and  inventories  prior 
to  the  fifteenth  century.      There  is  no  space  now  to 
discuss  particular  instances,  or  in  what  cases  so  many 
of  our  parish  church  chests  may  be  of  Flemish  origin. 
The  fine  example  at   Dersingham,  Norfolk,  with  the 
angels  and  emblems  of  the   Evangelists   is  a  typical 
one   of  which   the    English   workmanship   cannot   be 
doubtful.      A  more  difficult  question   is   involved    in 
the  origin  of  the  chest  in  York  Minster  and  the  panel 
of  similar  style  (Plate  xlvii.)  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum.     In  other  cases  may  we  not  consider  the  fact 
of  so  many  Flemish  artists  having  become  domiciled 
amongst  us  ?     The  district  around  Southwold  appears 
to  have  been  particularly  favoured  by  them  in  the  four- 
teenth century.     But   in   the  two  just  mentioned  we 
may  reasonably  see   a    Flemish  origin.      There   is   a 
similar  design  on  the  chest  at  Ypres,  a  similar  story, 
296 


'■'    '  77      \LVIl 


i%J!.^^ 


1.    FANKL   OF   CHKST,    KNdMSH    OK    II.KMISH.     FOUKI  KIN  I  II   I  KNTl'RV.    victoria  am>  ai  iiikt  mi^kim 
'J.   CHKST.     FRJ'.NCH.     FIKIFF.NTH    CENTURY,    victoria  and  ai  bfrt  museim 
3.    rrHESr.     KRK.NCH'     lIKTKhNTH     CF.NTURV.     iv  the  altiioks  i-osser.'iion 

I'Af.B  ■i^^ 


CHESTS    AND    COFFERS 

spiritedly  treated,  yet  almost  childish  in  perspective: 
and,  as  in  the  York  and  Kensington  chests,  the  same 
tumbledown  Gothic  buildings,  conventional  trees  re- 
calling those  of  early  Christian  sculptures,  the  same 
naive  representations  of  many  episodes  in  the  story  of 
St.  George  and  the  Princess  all  in  one  picture,  the 
horrible  dragon  being  slain  or  captured  in  one  portion 
and  in  another  docilely  following  the  princess  with 
quite  an  engaging  smile  on  its  face  ;  the  same  little 
animals  scurrying  into  their  holes  in  fright,  and  the 
kings  and  queens,  with  their  crowns  on,  looking  out 
of  the  windows  in  true  miniature  style.  We  may 
note  that  in  the  Kensington  panel  the  subject  is 
exactly  reversed  from  that  of  the  York  chest.  What 
may  be  the  reason  of  this,  what  might  be  deduced 
from  the  circumstance,  which  is  the  earliest  in  date, 
and  whether  either  or  both  are  English,  are  questions 
not  easy  to  determine  with  certainty.  Mr.  Roe  in  his 
Ancieiit  Coffers  and  Cupboards  is  persuaded  that  they, 
with  the  Ypres  chest,  are  English  in  design  and 
execution.  Judging  from  the  large  number  of 
mediaeval  examples  of  this  most  useful  article  of 
furniture,  which  still  exist  in  churches  and  in  public 
and  private  collections,  there  must  have  been  an 
enormous  output  of  worked  panels,  decorated  with 
figure  subjects,  with  window  tracery,  linen  pattern, 
and  every  other  known  description  of  ornament — 
intended  to  be  worked  up  into  choir-stall  panels, 
panelling  of  rooms,  coffers,  dressers,  wardrobes,  beds, 
alcoves,  sedilia  and  for  innumerable  other  purposes. 
Doubtless,  many  that  we  now  find  on  the  fronts  of 
chests  and  elsewhere  had  already  been  used  under 
other  conditions. 

The  beautiful  linen  or  napkin  pattern,  which  was 
so  much  a  favourite  on  chests  and  coffers  and  for 
panelling  generally  from  the  early  fifteenth  century 
and  for  perhaps  three  centuries  afterwards,  lent  itself 

297 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

to  an  almost  indefinite  number  of  variations.  Of 
French,  or  Flemish  origin,  it  came  to  England  about 
the  year  1500.  The  conception  of  the  idea  has  been 
variously  accounted  for.  According  to  Viollet-le-Duc 
it  was  often  the  practice  before  the  fifteenth  century 
to  cover  wood  panels  with  parchment  or  with  linen 
stiffened  with  glue.  As  this  covering  got  old  and 
torn  it  shrunk  and  became  unstuck  in  parts,  and  the 
edges  crumpled  up.  The  wood-carvers  from  this 
accident  evolved  the  idea  of  an  ornamental  motive 
and  a  method  of  thickening  portions  of  the  panels. 
The  earliest  example  known  to  him  was  in  a  small 
fourteenth-century  armoire  in  the  church  at  Mortain. 
Others  see  in  it  a  suggestion  from  mullions  flattened 
out :  others,  again,  that  it  was  developed  from  simple 
champfered  lines  and  that  it  went  on  developing  with 
all  sorts  of  exaggerated  complications  and  differences 
till  it  was  metamorphosed  out  of  existence.  It  is  more 
than  likely  that  the  first  idea  proceeded  simply  from 
the  folding  of  a  length  of  cloth,  such  as  a  tablecloth 
or  other  linen  which  the  chests  themselves  were  made 
to  contain,  backwards  and  forwards  without  allowing 
the  different  folds  actually  to  meet  and  overlap.  In 
this  manner  they  form  a  number  of  ridges  and  furrows 
or  grooves  suggesting  ogee  mouldings,  the  upper  and 
lower  edges  indicating  the  arrangement  of  the  pleats 
with  a  certain  symmetrical  regularity.  In  its  simpler 
forms  no  more  charming  and  refined  design  for  orna- 
ment could  be  imagined,  resulting  in  a  restful  play  of 
light  and  shade  alternating  and  undulating  in  swell 
and  hollow,  which  is  not  the  least  of  its  attractive 
qualities.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  special  English 
variety,  but  we  meet  in  old  houses  numberless 
specimens  of  every  kind.  In  the  case  of  our  own 
country  the  subject  is  one  which  would  be  more 
properly  considered  in  dealing  with  the  fine  examples 
of  English  panelling  of  Tudor  and  Jacobean  times. 
298 


CHESTS    AND    COFFERS 

Amongst  them  would  be  conspicuous  those  of  such 
great  houses  as  Aldermaston  Court,  Abington  Hall, 
Crowhurst  Place,  the  Vyne  at  Basingstoke,  Knebworth, 
and  Haddon  Hall,  and  literally  hundreds  of  others 
could  be  named.  But  Aldermaston  alone  would 
require  a  book  to  itself. 

Chests  and  coffers  are  attractive  also  in  other  ways. 
Many,  besides  their  own  simple  elegance,  are  remark- 
able for  the  charming  forged  ironwork  of  the  bands 
and  lockplates,  and  are  examples  of  the  arts  of  the 
smith,  of  workers  in  engraved  and  embossed  leather,  and 
of  the  painter.  Finally  there  is  their  historical  interest 
and  the  thought  that  these  venerable  objects  have  for 
centuries  been  the  receptacles  of  the  most  treasured 
archives.  And,  again,  the  early  ones  especially,  testify 
to  their  use  as  offertory  chests  for  the  collection  of 
alms  for  special  purposes  such  as  the  Crusades.  In 
the  year  1200,  under  Pope  Innocent  in.,  a  general 
mandate  was  issued  for  setting  up  these  offertory 
chests.  '  To  this  end  we  command  that  in  every 
church  there  shall  be  placed  a  hollow  trunk,  fastened 
with  three  keys,  the  first  to  be  kept  by  the  bishop,  the 
second  by  the  priest  of  the  church,  and  the  third  by 
some  religious  layman,  and  that  the  faithful  shall  be 
exhorted  to  deposit  in  it  as  God  shall  move  their 
hearts  their  alms  for  the  remission  of  their  sins,  and 
that  once  in  the  week  in  all  churches  mass  shall  be 
publicly  sung  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and  especially 
of  those  who  shall  thus  contribute.' 

There  is  a  class  of  figure  sculpture  in  wood  which 
until  recently  has  received  very  little  attention.  Few 
people  are  aware  that  there  still  exist  in  England 
nearly  a  hundred  sepulchral  effigies  for  altar,  or  table 
tombs  of  a  similar  character  to  those  in  stone,  marble, 
alabaster,  and  bronze.  A  list  of  early  references  to  the 
subject  will  be  found  \\v\ditx  Sepulchral  Monuments  in  the 
Bibliography  appended  to  this  volume.     An  account  of 

299 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

these  effigies,  considerably  longer  than  pressure  on  our 
space  now  permits,  had  originally  been  prepared  for  the 
present  work.  In  the  meanw^hile  an  admirable  mono- 
graph by  Mr.  A.  C.  Fryer, ^  who  has  collected  all  the 
available  information  on  the  subject,  has  appeared,  and 
the  reader  may  now  be  referred  to  this  for  details  of 
the  various  figures.  These  effigies  are  scattered 
amongst  various  counties  from  Yorkshire  in  the  north 
to  Devonshire  in  the  south,  the  most  prolific  districts 
being  in  Northamptonshire  and  the  eastern  counties. 
The  identification  of  the  personages  represented  is,  in 
a  large  number  of  cases,  by  no  means  certain,  nor  can 
we  be  sure  of  dates  or  even  periods.  Roughly  speak- 
ing, if  we  exclude  the  figure  at  Gloucester,  w^hich  has 
been  supposed  to  represent  Robert  Courthose,  there 
are  perhaps  ten  or  a  dozen  dating  from  the  thirteenth 
century  and  about  forty  of  the  fourteenth.  Then,  with 
the  exception  of  two  or  three  which  may  possibly 
belong  to  the  fifteenth,  the  remainder  are  all  later  than 
the  early  sixteenth,  at  any  rate  they  did  not  again 
become  common  until  about  1550,  when  the  exhaustion 
of  the  Derbyshire  and  Northamptonshire  alabaster 
quarries  probably  caused  a  recourse  to  a  less  expensive 
material.  The  last  of  all  are  the  Oglander  effigies  in 
the  parish  church  of  Brading,  Isle  of  Wight,  which 
date  from  the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

In  accordance  with  the  universal  practice  the 
mediaeval  sculptures  were  coloured,  and,  as  the  traces 
of  the  old  colouring  show,  where  still  remaining,  often 
in  a  most  beautiful  style.  The  remarks  in  other  parts 
of  this  book  upon  the  polychroming  of  statuary  apply 
equally  to  these  and  need  not  now  be  repeated. 
Particular  references  to  the  subject  generally  and  to 
those  which  have  been  repainted  in  later  times  will  be 
found  in  Mr.  Fryer  s  work.     One  of  the  earliest  effigies 

^    Wooden  Monumental  Effigies  in  England  and  Wales.     By  A.  C.  Fryer. 
1910. 

300 


SEPULCHRAL    EFFIGIES 

— a  priest  in  a  chasuble,  at  Clifford,  Hertfordshire — 
of  the  thirteenth  century  (Plate  xlviil),  is  extremely 
valuable  as  an  example  of  ecclesiastical  costume  and  of 
the  treatment  of  drapery  in  sculpture  of  the  period,  and 
a  very  beautiful  one  is  the  early  fifteenth-century  figure 
of  Catherine,  Countess  of  Stafford,  in  Wingfield  church, 
Suffolk. 

The  thirteenth  century  in  England,  as  elsewhere, 
had  been  a  period  of  the  highest  refinement  in  the 
cultivation  and  practice  of  the  plastic  arts,  and  of  a 
lavish  display  of  magnificence  and  of  material  wealth. 
Sepulchral  figures  were  of  marble  or  alabaster,  the 
draperies  simple  and  usually  gilded  only  in  the 
orphreys  and  other  decorative  portions.  The  same 
elegance  and  simplicity  would  have  applied  to  those  in 
wood.  Then  there  succeeded  a  mixture  of  materials 
and  a  lavish  use  of  colour.  These  composite  figures 
were  painted  and  gilded  and  even  completely  covered 
with  plates  of  silver  and  bronze,  with  rich  enamelling, 
on  a  core  or  carved  model  of  oak,  as  we  find  in  the 
effigy  of  William  de  Valence  at  Westminster.  Effigies 
of  wood,  alone,  then  appear  to  have  become  common, 
and  these  also  were  covered  with  gesso  and  elaborately 
painted  and  gilded. 

As  in  sepulchral  monuments  in  other  materials  our 
wooden  effigies  comprise  not  only  figures  of  knightly 
personages,  but  of  their  wives  also.  Of  the  latter 
there  are,  in  all,  perhaps  about  a  score  examples  of  no 
small  value  in  regard  to  the  costumes  of  the  period. 
There  are  priests  and  bishops  and  secular  ecclesiastical 
dignitaries  at  Canterbury,  at  Greatham  in  Durham,  at 
Little  Leighs,  Essex,  and  at  All  Saints,  Derby.  The 
single  example  of  the  law  is  the  effigy  at  West  Down, 
Devon,  whether  it  be  that  of  William  Donne,  chief 
baron  of  the  exchequer  in  the  nineteenth  year  of 
Edward  iii.,  as  was  long  supposed,  or  of  his  brother 
judge  and  contemporary,  Sir  John  Stowford,  who  died 

301 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

about  1372.  In  the  sixteenth  century  not  only  the 
effigies  themselves  but  the  whole  monument,  with  a 
canopy  and  other  decoration,  were  made  of  wood  as 
in  the  case — a  very  beautiful  one — of  Sir  Alexander 
Culpeper  at  Goudhurst  in  Kent.  Oak  was,  naturally, 
the  wood  in  general  use,  but  we  find  elm  and  chestnut 
also.  An  examination  of  the  figures  shows  that  it  was 
the  practice  to  make  them  lighter  by  hollowing  them 
out ;  and  to  dry  the  wood  and  perhaps  to  dry  the 
colouring  also,  they  were  filled  with  burning,  or 
partially  burnt,  coal.  Remains  of  this  still  exist  in 
some  cases.  In  accordance  with  universal  practice  the 
whole  work  was  elaborately  painted  and  gilded,  the 
gesso  raised  in  parts  for  tooling  and  jewelling,  the 
colours  thin  and  flatted,  and  the  gilding  deadened  and 
usually  on  an  ochreous  base.  Many  of  these  figures 
have  since  been  painted  white  to  imitate  marble  or 
alabaster.  For  this  reason  the  fact  that  they  are  of 
wood  frequently  escapes  attention :  for  example,  in  the 
case  of  the  effigy  in  St.  Saviour's,  Southwark.  Not- 
withstanding the  carelessness  and  impiety  of  succeeding 
ages,  we  are  fortunate  in  possessing  as  many  as  we  do 
(about  ninety  or  a  hundred)  of  these  figures,  no  less 
interesting  than  their  companions  in  other  materials. 
And  we  may  remember  that  the  neglect  which  has 
overcome  some  of  them,  and  the  destruction  of  many 
more,  are  due  to  events  and  causes  subsequent  to  the 
Reformation,  for  a  proclamation  of  Elizabeth  in  1560 
expressly  forbade  the  '  breaking  and  defacing  of  tombs, 
and  the  effigies  of  kings,  princes,  nobles,  or  of  any 
others  set  up  for  the  memory  of  them  to  their  posterity.' 
Here  are  records,  each  in  his  own  village  church,  of  the 
knight  who  fell  fighting  in  battle  in  the  Crusades,  or — 
yet  always  in  his  knightly  armour — who  died  peacefully 
at  home.  Here,  inscribed,  is  handed  down  to  posterity 
the  story  of  their  deeds  of  valour,  or  of  honours,  of 
their  ambitions,  of  their  charities.  Here  is  the  simple 
302 


SEPULCHRAL    EFFIGIES 

prayer  in  always  the  same  set  terms  addressed  to  the 
passer-by  to  pray  for  the  soul  of  the  person  represented. 
Perhaps  there  is  hardly  anywhere  else  in  England  so 
late  an  example  as  in  the  effigies  of  the  fifth  Earl  of 
Westmoreland  and  his  three  wives  at  Staindrop  (the 
last  being  his  deceased  wife's  sister).  He  died  in  1564, 
but  the  tomb  was  made  in  1560,  and  bears  inscribed 
round  the  edge  :  '  All  you  w^ho  come  to  the  churche  to 
pray  a  Paternoster  and  a  Crede  for  to  have  mercy  of  us 
and  all  our  progeny.'  In  the  case  of  Sir  John  Savile 
at  Thornhill,  Yorks,  who  died  1529,  the  knight  lies 
between  his  two  wives  on  a  wooden  altar-tomb  bearing 
shields  of  arms,  and  this  curious  inscription  in  Gothic 
characters  :  '  Bonys  emong  stonys  lys  here  ful  styl — 
Qwylste  the  sawle  wanderis  were  that  God  wyl.  In 
Anno  D.M.  millesimo  quingentissimo  vigesimo  nono.' 
Here  are  men  and  women  dressed  in  the  costumes 
of  times  long  past,  with  their  jewels  and  ornaments 
upon  them.  These  are  valuable  details  in  the  history 
of  costume.  They  are  not  always  free  from  anachron- 
isms. In  some  cases,  it  may  have  been  before,  in 
others  some  years  after  death,  that  the  monument  was 
set  up.  It  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  also,  that  in  all 
figures  of  this  kind,  of  whatever  material,  there  was 
wholesale  shop-w^ork,  kept  in  stock  and  ordered  from 
London,  York,  and  other  great  centres.  There  would, 
again,  have  been  copying,  and  perhaps  using  figures 
made  at  an  earlier  date,  though  none  would  have  been 
ordered  from  abroad  as  is  the  case  with  brasses.  The 
wooden  effigies  before  us  are  unfortunately  almost 
completely  restricted  to  the  noble  and  ecclesiastical 
class.  Of  lesser  personages,  of  the  yeoman  who 
worshipped  in  the  village  church,  and  of  his  dame,  of 
the  wealthy  woolstapler  or  other  prosperous  merchant 
we  have  but  three  examples,  but  they  are  interesting 
ones.  The  first  is  at  Eaton  under  Haywood,  Shrop- 
shire,  in  civilian  costume,  wearing  a  long  gown  and 

303 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

close-fitting-  hood.  The  second  at  Much  Marcle, 
Herefordshire,  has  a  long,  tight-buttoned  tunic  to  the 
knees,  a  hooded  cape  over  the  shoulders,  is  cross- 
legged,  and  the  feet  rest  upon  a  lion,  the  tail  of  which 
curls  round  the  left  foot.  The  figure,  Mr.  Fryer  tells 
us,  is  considered  by  Mr.  James  Wood,  who  had  access 
to  the  manuscript  histories  of  Herefordshire  in  the 
library  of  the  Benedictine  cathedral  priory  at  Belmont, 
to  be  the  efiigy  of  Sir  Hugh  Helyon,  removed  from 
Ashperton,  to  the  new  chantry  chapel  about  1414. 
The  identification  is,  however,  extremely  doubtful. 
The  third  is  a  civilian,  with  his  wife,  at  Little  Baddow, 
Essex. 

There  is  always  in  these  as  in  similar  effigies  in 
other  materials  a  pathetic  interest  and  even  a  kind  of 
universally  recognized  symbolism.  The  knight,  in  the 
fashion  which  is  peculiarly  English,  often  lies  not 
absolutely  still,  but  as  if  in  life,  one  leg  bent,  the  hand 
unsheathing  the  sword,  ready,  as  it  were,  to  start  up. 
We  have  a  particularly  strong  example  of  this  in  the 
effigy  at  Chew  Magna  (Plate  XLViii.).  In  the  case  of 
ladies  there  is  something  homely  in  the  dog  which  lies  at 
his  mistress's  feet,  often  an  obvious  pet  dog  which  even 
yet  looks  up  into  her  face.  Neglect,  restorations,  and 
repainting  have,  unfortunately,  worked  havoc  amongst 
these  figures.  Even  when — as  there  is  evidence  to 
show — the  original  polychroming  still  remained  fairly 
intact,  it  was  considered  that  they  would  look  far  better 
masquerading  as  stone  or  alabaster.  At  Banham  the 
effigy  of  a  knight  of  the  early  fourteenth  century  was 
painted  and  sanded  so  successfully  that  a  writer  in 
Notes  and  Queries  says  that  it  '  now  looks  almost  as 
well  as  stone.'  In  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  splendid  tomb  with  the  effigies  of  three 
members  of  the  family  of  Games  of  Aberbrain  and  their 
wives,  on  three  tiers  of  oaken  beds  elaborately  carved, 
painted    and   gilded,  in    the   church  of   St.    John    the 

304 


I'l.ATK    Xl.Vlll 


^    y.    o 
<    -=    o 


SEPULCHRAL    EFFIGIES 

Evangelist  at  Brecknock,  was  removed.  The  well- 
known  and  indefatigable  antiquary,  Theophilus  Jones, 
speaking  of  this  monument  in  his  History  of  the 
County  of  Brecknock  (1809)  says:  'Only  one  female 
figure  remained  when  this  vile  incumbrance  was  re- 
moved ;  the  rest  were  burnt  by  the  Commonwealth 
soldiers  ;  much  as  I  deplore  the  outrages  they  committed, 
I  have  often  lamented  while  it  continued  that  they  did 
not  destroy  the  whole  of  it.  Lord  Camden  has,  how- 
ever, with  great  propriety,  lately  caused  it  to  be  taken 
down  and  the  chancel  decently  and  uniformly  painted.' 
The  mutilated  figure  of  Elinor,  wife  of  Thomas  Games, 
now  alone  remains.  Churchyard,  in  his  poetic  descrip- 
tion of  The  IVorthiness  of  IVales  (1587),  after  noticing 
the  tomb  of  the  family  of  Walters,  goes  on  : 

'  Cross-legged  by  him,  as  was  the  auncient  trade 
Debreos  lyes,  in  picture  as  I  troe 
Of  most  hard  wood,  which  wood  as  divers  say 
No  worms  can  eat,  or  time  can  wear  away. 
A  couching  hound,  as  harrolds  thought  full  meete 
In  wood  likewise  lyes  underneath  his  feete.' 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  the  practice  of 
making  monumental  effigies  in  wood  was  peculiarly 
English.  I  know  no  references  to  the  subject  in  any 
foreign  publications.  We  have  it  on  Mr.  Albert 
Hartshorne's  authority  that  in  reply  to  his  inquiry, 
Mr.  Hefner  von  Alteneck,  whose  name  carries  such 
weight,  informed  him  that  not  one  now  exists  in 
Germany.  Mr.  Fryer  says  that  there  is  a  wood  effigy 
to  an  ecclesiastic  of  Hildesheim,  and  one  to  an  English 
priest  in  the  cathedral  of  Burgos.  The  fine  figure  in 
wood  in  the  museum  of  the  Louvre,  and  called  there  a 
figure  tombale  d'un  moine  chevalier  is  here  reproduced 
(Plate  XLViii.).  And,  in  the  Muse6  des  Arts  Decoratifs, 
Paris,  there  is  a  very  beautiful  life-size  figure  of  a  girl, 
fully  coloured  and  gilt.  It  has  been  placed  on  the  top 
of  a  Florentine  cassone,  with  which  it  has  no  relation- 
U  305 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

ship.  At  one  time  in  the  Bardini  collection,  it  is  said 
to  have  been  bought  at  Faenza.  Of  the  first  half  of  the 
quattrocento,  it  would  appear  to  be  the  work  of  an 
artist  of  considerable  talent — perhaps  of  the  Sienese 
school — inspired  by  the  beautiful  figure  of  Jacopo  della 
Quercia's  Ilaria  del  Carre t to  monument  in  the  cathedral 
of  Lucca.^ 

We  may  now  take,  as  further  illustrations  of  English 
mediaeval  figure  work — deficient  though  they  may  be  in 
numbers  and  importance — the  few  examples  to  be  found 
in  our  national  museum  at  Kensington,  which  are  there 
labelled  as  English.  The  first  is  a  half  life-size  late 
fifteenth-century  group  of  the  curious  Holy  Family 
kind  so  common  in  Germany  and  Flanders,  and  known 
as  Anna  selbdritt  (No.  37,  1887)  (Plate  xxxviii.).  At 
one  time  in  Mr.  William  Maskell's  private  chapel  at 
Bude,  the  principal  figure,  seated  on  a  faldstool  under 
a  canopy,  is  some  thirty-six  inches  high.  The  Virgin 
holds  the  Child,  who  in  the  usual  way  turns  over  the 
leaves  of  a  book  on  her  knee  with  one  hand  :  in  the 
other  is  a  bunch  of  grapes.  She  herself  is  seated  on  St. 
Anne's  knee.  The  whole  group  is  extremely  difficult 
to  characterize,  and  to  assign  an  origin  with  any  con- 
fidence. The  St.  Anne,  in  pose,  in  breadth  of  hand- 
ling of  the  draperies,  and  in  expression  is  noble  and 
inspiring.     But  the  Infant,  weakly  and  unintelligent, 

^  M.  Koechlin,  the  well-known  French  writer  on  art,  was  kind  enough  to 
give  me  the  following  information  in  response  to  my  inquiries  concerning 
effigies  in  wood  on  the  continent.  He  says:  'Sepulchral  figures  in  wood  are 
very  rare  in  France.  For  my  part  I  only  know  one,  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
which  was  shown  at  the  exhibition  of  French  Primitives  in  1904.  It  is  an 
effigy  of  a  lady,  in  very  low  relief,  which  had  never  been  placed  on  a  tomb,  but, 
I  think,  stood  upright,  something  after  the  manner  of  certain  brasses  in  Italy 
or  Germany,  on  a  wall,  the  body  interred  beneath.  As  to  the  effigy  in  the 
Mus'ee  des  Arts  Decorati/s,  the  young  girl  is  Italian.  This  and  another  French 
recumbent  figure,  evidently  a  fragment  of  a  monument,  are  reproduced  in  our 
catalogue  Le  Bois,  i^''*  par  tie.  Planches  19  ei  10.  As  to  the  "  Moine  chevalier" 
that  you  ask  about,  it  is  no  doubt  Italian,  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  say  whether 
it  is  a  sepulchral  effigy,  or  some  other  kind  of  figure.  In  any  case  the  piece  is 
not  French.' 

306 


ENGLISH    FIGURE    WORK 

is  puzzling.  We  must  remember,  however,  that  the 
figures  lack  now  the  colouring  in  view  of  which  they 
were  probably  sculptured.  I  hesitate  to  accept  the 
ascription  of  the  museum  authorities  to  England,  even 
allowing  for  close  following  of  Netherlandish  or 
German  models,  for  we  have  no  authority  for  the 
probability  that  the  fashion  of  Anna  selbdritt  was 
followed  in  England.  On  the  other  hand  it  would  not 
be  difficult  to  find  in  Flemish  or  German  art  analogies 
with  the  face  of  the  Virgin.  The  Infant,  small  and 
rickety  as  it  seems  to  be,  has  not  a  little  resemblance, 
in  form  and  pose,  to  some  fifteenth-century  Suabian 
wood  sculpture.  I  would  cite,  for  instance,  a  painted 
Madonna  group  in  the  Berlin  Museum  :  Mary  seated, 
holding  a  large  ball  or  globe,  the  Child  facing  and 
blessing.  Yet  if  we  take  the  figure  of  St.  Anne 
by  itself,  it  must,  I  think,  be  given  to  the  Low 
Countries.  At  the  same  time  I  hold  it  to  be  a  ques- 
tion not  easy  to  settle  with  any  certainty.  The 
principal  difficulty  is  that  we  have  here  an  unfinished 
work. 

There  is  a  curious  panel  in  high  relief  in  the  same 
museum  which  we  may  feel  pretty  sure  is  English,  of 
mid-thirteenth  century,  and  an  exceedingly  interesting 
example.  The  Almighty — so  says  the  label — seated  in 
a  recess  holds  a  cross  between  His  knees.  But  the 
face,  with  the  parted  hair,  flowing  locks,  and  type  of 
beard  is  not  suggestive  of  God  the  Father,  but,  rather, 
of  the  Saviour,  although  it  was  unusual  thus  to  repre- 
sent Him.  Neither  is  there  any  figure  on  the  cross, 
but  a  plain  circle  or  aureole  and  a  cross  within  it  at 
the  intersection  of  the  arms  of  the  larger  cross.  The 
panel  is  of  oak,  in  its  present  condition  almost  black 
oak,  but  of  course  at  one  time  painted,  as  the  linen 
substratum  and  priming  remaining  show.  Six  of  a  set 
of  English  figures  of  the  Apostles  (No.  411,  1589), 
formerly  in  the  Maskell  collection,  and  given  by  Mr. 

307 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Maskell,  are  here  reproduced  on  the  same  plate  as  a  set 
by  Riemenschneider  (Plate  xlix.),  but  one  can  find  in 
them  no  resemblance  to  the  Lower  Prankish  school. 
The  draperies  are  entirely  different,  without  any  ex- 
aggerated angular  folds.  I  think  them  to  be  late 
fourteenth  rather  than  fifteenth  century  as  the  museum 
label  describes  them.  They  are  of  fairly  early  style, 
with  something  of  the  stolidity  of  the  Lewis  ivory 
chessmen.  The  faces  and  general  character  are  of  the 
type  of  the  Saviour  figure  just  described.  But  the 
inspiration  is  various  :  partly  French,  and,  if  in  any 
way  German,  would  be  of  the  Low  German  or  Suabian 
type  of  the  early  fifteenth  century.  It  is  not  unlikely 
that  the  destination  of  figures  such  as  these  was  to 
flank  the  poppy-heads  of  some  elaborately  carved  bench- 
ends.  A  fifteenth-century  Madonna  statuette,  also 
from  the  Maskell  collection,  is  interesting  (though  in 
bad  condition)  on  account  of  the  scarcity  of  English 
examples.  It  is  not  a  fine  work,  certainly,  with  the 
fat  heavy  cheeks  which  even  the  colouring  would 
not  alter.  A  standing  figure  of  St.  Andrew  in  oak, 
unpainted,  and  an  applique  group  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin  and  St.  Joseph  adoring  the  Infant — interesting 
on  account  of  the  costumes — and  an  early  sixteenth- 
century  figure  in  a  flat  doctor's  cap  almost  exhaust 
the  list  of  English  figure  work  of  Gothic  times  in  the 
museum. 

There  still  exist  in  various  churches  in  the  country 
a  few  lecterns,  of  wood,  which  come  more  properly 
under  the  head  of  furniture.  Among  them  may  be 
cited  those  of  Detling  in  Kent,  Ramsey  and  Bury  in 
Hunts,  Lingfield,  Wells,  and  Norwich.  In  Labarte's 
Handbook  of  the  Arts  of  the  Middle  Ages,  published 
in  1847,  is  figured  a  carved  saddleback  or  cantle  of 
wood,  which,  judging  from  the  engraving,  seems  of 
extremely  fine  character.  It  was  formerly  in  the 
Debruc^e  collection.  The  subjects  are  a  knight  and  a 
308 


PLATE  A'LIX 


MASTER    CARVERS 

wodehonse  or  wild  man  of  the  woods  fighting  wild 
animals,  and  other  small  figures  hunting.  There  is  an 
edging  of  rosettes,  and  the  character  of  the  carving 
generally  is  in  the  style  of  English  ivories.  I  cannot 
help  remarking  how  often  in  the  case  of  ivories  which 
at  first  glance  suggest  an  English  origin,  one  finds, 
next,  that  characteristic  border  of  rosettes.  It  is  not, 
of  course,  intended  to  say  that  these  by  themselves 
prove  English  workmanship,  for  one  finds  them  equally 
in  French  ivories.  I  have  no  information  where  this 
saddle  cantle  now  is — perhaps  in  the  Louvre.  In 
default  of  examples  in  wood,  I  have  long  held  the 
opinion  that  very  many  mediaeval  ivories  usually 
ascribed  to  France  should  testify  to  the  excellence  of 
English  art,  and  the  difficulties  in  the  way  may  one 
day  be  elucidated. 

The  question  is  asked  in  a  succeeding  chapter — 
*  Who,  then,  did  this  village  work  ? '  For  a  reply  w^e 
are  almost  entirely  dependent  on  parish  accounts. 
There  are  few  of  these  earlier  than  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  the  names  of  carvers  are  hardly  ever  mentioned  in 
them.  We  may  take  it  that  the  master  carpenters  of 
the  Middle  Ages  were  not  only  architects  and  contrac- 
tors for  work,  but  were  the  designers  also.  Some 
information  may  be  gleaned,  with  the  names  of 
carpenters  in  the  thirteenth  century,  from  Smith's 
Antiquities  of  Westminster,  and  Brayley  and  Neales' 
account  of  the  abbey ;  and  in  the  accounts  of  the 
Carpenters  Company  are  some  mentions  of  the  panel- 
lings of  the  halls  of  the  City  Companies,  but  few  names 
of  carvers.  In  an  issue  roll,  we  find  that  William  de 
Lyndesay,  of  London,  a  carver  of  wood  images,  was 
paid  in  1307  for  a  table  (retable)  with  wood  images  for 
St.  George's  Chapel,  Windsor.  Other  names  of 
imagers  appear,  such  as  Alexander  of  Abingdon,  1305, 
but  we  cannot  distinguish  those  who  worked  only  in 
wood       In  or  about  1506  Laurence  Imber,  Drawswerd, 

309 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

and  others,  made  estimates  for  patterns  in  wood  for 
the  images  for  the  tomb  of  Henry  the  Seventh.     The 
*  patrones    to    be    made    as    well    as    can    be    done.' 
Laurence  Imber,  who  died  in   1529,  was  of  a  famous 
family  of  carvers,  and  came  to  be  sheriff  and  mayor. 
No  doubt  these  pattern  makers  such  as  le  imaginator, 
John    Hales,    who   made   one   for  a   bronze   effigy  at 
Ormskirk,  were  sculptors  of  general  figure  work  also. 
The  bill  of  the  king's  goldsmith    for  the  Coronation 
Chair  at  Westminster  includes  'pro  duobus  leopardis 
parvis  de  ligno,  faciendis,  depingendis  et  deanrandis ' 
to  be  made  by  Master  Walter,  who  was  also  the  king's 
painter,  a.d.   1299.      In  the  Fabric  rolls  of  Exeter  we 
find  the  charge  for  timber  for  the  bishop's  seat  brought 
from  Newton  Abbot  and  Chudleigh  :  four  pounds  to 
Robert  de  Galmeton  for  making  it,  also  for  six  statues. 
The  accounts  for  Somersetshire  and  Devon  parishes 
are  referred  to  in  another  chapter  of  this  book.     At 
Yatton  in  1446  Crosse,  the  carpenter,  is  conspicuous  in 
the  making  of  the  roodloft,  and  there  are  payments  to 
John    Balwe    and    J.    Hikke    pro  factura    sedilium^ 
probably  of  wood,  for  the  cost  for  nails  follows,  and  we 
find  also  the  names  of  John  Wakelyn,  R.  Kew,  and 
J.    Mey,   carvers  and   gilders,    Hyllman    and    Maskall 
being  churchwardens  in   1408.     In    1535   'to  Sperark 
y®  carver,  ernest  pense   iij'V      At  Tintinhull  in    1451 
occurs  the  name   of  Thomas    Dayfote,  carpenter,  for 
making  the  roode  *  tit  in  meremiis  ligneis  ex  conven- 
Hone,'  and  to  *  uno  peynter  for  peynting  de  la  rodeloft.' 
But   most   frequently  there  are  no   names,    but   only 
entries,    such   as  in    the   Stamford  accounts,  that  the 
churchwardens  go  to  Abingdon  '  to  speke  for  ymages, 
vij^ :  item  for  three  images,  the  Rode,  Mary,  and  John, 
xxij**  iij*^'     The  records  and  documents   belonging  to 
the  dean  and  chapter  of  Worcester  afford  some  infor- 
mation.      Amongst    them    is     Prior     Moore's    most 
interesting  journal  of   15 18.     In  this  are  many  par- 
310 


IMAGERS 

ticulars  of  payments :  nearly  twelve  pounds  (a  large 
sum)  to  Thomas  Stilgo  for  '  gylding  and  peynting  of 
y®  ymags  Ch'us  and  or  Lady  in  y^  mydd.  of  y®  avvtur  in 
Seynt  Cecili's  chapel.'  In  the  accounts  of  St.  Mary  at 
Hill,  in  the  city  of  London,  in  1496 :  '  Item  to  Sir  John 
Plumer  for  making  of  the  fygyres  of  the  Roode,  xx^ ; 
item  to  the  Karvare  for  making  of  iij  dyadems  and  of 
oon  of  the  evangelystes,  and  for  mending  the  roode, 
the  crosse,  the  Mary  and  John,  the  Crown  of  Thorn, 
with  all  odyr  fawtes,  summa  io\'  '  Paid  to  Undir- 
wood  for  paynting  and  gyldyng  of  the  iij  diadems,  with 
the  ij  nobillas  that  I  owe  to  him  in  moneye  summa 
vli  xj^  x*^.'  Among  sepulchral  effigies  on  the  Neville 
monument  at  Staindrop  is  recorded  on  the  edge  the 
name  of  the  artist,  John  Starbottom. 

Meagre  though  these  entries  may  be,  they  might  be 
extended  to  a  considerable  extent,  and  the  quaint 
language  and  spelling  add  not  a  little  to  their  interest ; 
sometimes,  even,  to  our  information.  In  any  case  they 
show  that  there  was  considerable  activity  in  the  craft 
of  woodcarving  in  England  in  the  centuries  immedi- 
ately preceding  the  Reformation  to  which  they  refer. 
But  in  but  one  instance  can  we  identify  by  record  or 
by  mark  on  the  piece  itself  any  English  sculpture  with 
the  name  of  the  artist.  Nor  have  we  any  sign  of 
guildmarks  and  their  regulations  such  as  those  to 
which  reference  has  been  made  in  the  case  of  Flanders. 
In  all  probability  the  English  mediaeval  imager  was 
not  an  artist  of  great  consideration.  His  identity  was 
sunk  in  his  craft.  Even  in  stone,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  we  hear  only  vaguely  of  imagers  who  made 
the  Eleanor  crosses :  of  William  of  Colchester,  of 
William  de  Torell,  or  of  the  masters  in  bronze  or  in 
gold  and  silver  whom  Matthew  Paris  mentions.  How 
much  less  account,  then,  must  we  expect  of  the  wood 
chippers!  The  master  carpenter  was  everything,  the 
others  his  tools.     He  was  the  arranger  of  the  picture, 

311 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

and  it  was  the  decorative  whole  rather  than  the 
individual  units  which  told.  Yet  of  the  master 
builder  himself,  his  name  and  methods  of  organization, 
our  information  up  to  the  revival  in  Italy,  and  then 
for  a  further  considerable  period  in  that  country  only, 
is  vaguely  indefinite. 


312 


CHAPTER    XVI 

CHOIRS  AND  CHOIR  STALLS 

THROUGHOUT  the  history  of  woodcarving  and 
of  the  innumerable  uses  to  which  the  material 
has  been  applied  in  decoration,  nothing  is 
more  prominent  than  the  furnishing  and  ornamenting 
of  the  choirs  and  chancels  of  churches.  Even  if  we 
should  consider  only  the  quantity  of  material  employed 
this  has  been  enormous,  and  despite  destructions  it 
still  continues  to  beautify  innumerable  churches,  great 
and  small,  throughout  the  land.  Necessarily,  of 
course,  woodwork,  more  or  less  carved,  is  used  in  the 
architectural  construction  of  these  edifices.  It  is  not, 
however,  with  the  timbered  roofs,  which  still  exist  in 
considerable  numbers,  and  in  no  country  more  than  in 
England,  of  such  incomparable  beauty,  or  with  the 
other  details  of  the  main  structure  that  we  shall  now 
be  occupied.  The  choirs  and  chancels  with  their 
canopied  stall  work,  the  episcopal  thrones,  the  sedilia 
for  the  officiating  clergy,  the  rood  and  other  screens 
dividing  the  choir  from  the  rest  of  the  church  and — in 
England  especially — the  interesting  bench-ends,  form 
a  subject  which  is  almost  endless  in  variety  and 
interest.  Each  and  every  one  of  the  divisions  just 
mentioned  might  again  be  subdivided,  and  is  of 
sufficient  importance  to  require  a  monograph  surpass- 
ing the  dimensions  of  the  present  book.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  such  monographs  already  exist,  not  only  on  each 
subject   generally,    but   on   each    as  applied   to    some 

313 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

particular  instance.  For  example,  amongst  others,  the 
choirs  of  Amiens  and  of  Ulm  have  had  their  special 
chroniclers  ;  misericords,  and  the  countless  number  of 
themes  which  they  illustrate,  have  been  specially 
described  over  and  over  again  in  the  proceedings  of 
provincial  societies  in  every  country  and — to  refer  to 
England  alone — the  subject  of  screens  and  roodlofts 
has  received  special  attention  in  quite  recent  years. 
But  even  this  division  of  the  subject,  so  far  as  our  own 
country  is  concerned,  is  of  so  extensive  a  nature,  and 
involves  so  many  general  considerations,  that  in  no  one 
book  can  it  be  said  to  have  progressed  further — broadly 
speaking — than  as  regards  the  west  of  England.  In 
a  volume  such  as  the  present  one,  therefore,  it  would 
be  hardly  possible  to  attempt  more  than  a  general  out- 
line of  the  use  of  wood  sculpture  in  the  decoration  of 
choir  and  stall  work,  and  of  the  screens  forming  the 
enclosures,  or  separation  from  the  rest  of  the  church, 
together  with  a  slight  survey  of  the  history  of  the 
symbolism  so  extensively  used  in  the  carving  of  the 
under  parts  of  the  stall  seats,  known  as  misericords,  of 
the  statuary,  and  of  the  elaborate,  pictorial,  and  orna- 
mental sculpture  which  is  so  remarkable  a  feature  of 
Amiens,  of  Ulm,  and  of  many  other  great  choirs  of 
the  later  days  of  Gothic. 

We  know  very  little  indeed  regarding  any  precise 
date  at  which  we  may  place  the  introduction  of  a  choir, 
such  as  we  understand  it  to-day,  with  its  places  for  the 
clergy  and  assistants  in  the  form  of  ranges  of  stalls 
having  arm-rests  and  seats  which  turn  up  in  order  to 
afford  a  kind  of  rest  to  a  position  which  is  neither 
sitting  nor  standing.  In  ancient  times  churches  were 
entirely  without  any  seating  for  the  faithful,  as,  indeed, 
they  are  now  in  those  of  the  Oriental  rites.  The 
attitude  for  prayer,  in  which  may  be  included  any  part 
of  the  assistance  at  the  holy  offices,  was  standing.  The 
arrangement  of  the  choir  permitted  a  view  of  the  altar 

314 


CHOIRS 

and  the  priests,  and  it  was  not  until  about  the  ninth 
century  that  screens  forming  enclosures  rendered  the 
officiating  clergy  invisible  from  the  body  of  the  church. 
There  would  certainly  appear  to  have  been  no  kind  of 
seats  before  the  eighth  century.  From  that  time  to 
the  eleventh  all  kinds  of  attempts  were  made  to  intro- 
duce them.  That  they  existed  in  England  in  a 
movable  form  in  the  eleventh  century  is  certain,  for 
Lanfranc  prescribes  their  removal  on  Good  Friday  at 
the  ancient  ceremony  of  creeping  to  the  cross  [Decretum 
pro  ord.  S.  Beji).  The  early  history  of  the  construction 
of  choirs  need  not,  however,  be  followed  here  in  detail. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  name,  for  the  needs  of  the 
student,  such  works  as  those  of  De  Fleury,  Gu^nebault, 
Ducange,  the  encyclopaedia  of  Cabrol  and  Leclercq,  and 
the  researches  from  which  we  continue  to  profit,  of 
Mr.  Edmund  Bishop. 

Until,  roughly  speaking,  the  eleventh  century,  the 
chancel  was  separated  from  the  body  of  the  church  by 
a  low  screen  or  balustrade — the  cancelli,  whence  the 
name  of  this  part  is  derived.  Within  these  rails  stood 
the  altar,  and  beyond  this  and  facing  it  was  a  range  of 
seats  against  the  wall  of  the  apse,  and  in  the  centre  of 
them  the  throne  or  seat  of  the  bishop.  In  those  days 
— or  when  this  arrangement  was  altered  and  the  monks 
took  their  places  in  rows  on  each  side  of  the  choir,  in 
front  instead  of  behind  the  altar — the  long  offices  and 
ceremonies  at  which  they  assisted  necessitated  some 
indulgence  or  relaxation  from  the  standing  position. 
The  earliest  practice  was  the  use  of  a  kind  of  crutch, 
the  head  often  curiously  carved  and  decorated.  Some 
of  these  in  ivory,  wood,  and  metal,  still  remain,  and  are 
sometimes  confounded  with  the  similarly  tau-shaped 
staff,  used  by  a  bishop,  which  became  later  the  crosier 
as  we  now  know  it.  Ancient  regulations  and  con- 
stitutions show  that  the  use  of  this  support  was  general. 
Sometimes  protested  against,  it  was  disallowed,  from 

315 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

time  to  time,  according  as  a  more  or  less  severe  rule 
prevailed,  and  it  is  certain  that  its  use  was  not  confined 
to  the  old  or  infirm.  Even  the  laity  availed  themselves 
of  it,  and  there  are  liturgical  instructions  regulating 
when  it  must  be  laid  down — for  instance,  during  the 
reading  of  the  gospel. 

The  origin  of  the  term  stall  would  seem  to  be  from 
the  standing  place,  or  division,  in  which  persons,  or,  in 
the  case  of  a  stable,  animals,  are  separated  one  from 
another.  It  is  impossible  to  say  at  what  date  the  form 
of  choir  stall  with  the  arm-rest  fulfilling  the  earlier 
function  of  the  crutch,  and  the  upturned  seat,  with  its 
support  against  which  the  body  could  rest,  became 
general.  Certain  it  is  that  from  the  thirteenth  century 
to  the  present  day  no  kind  of  church  furniture  has 
altered  so  little  in  form.  If  not  the  earliest,  a  very 
early  mention  of  stalls  is  in  the  statutes  of  the  church 
of  Maestricht  in  the  year  1088.  The  annals  of  Amiens 
Cathedral  have,  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  an 
order  that  new  canons  should  have  each  his  stall 
(stallmn)  in  choir.  In  the  thirteenth  the  custom  is 
fully  established,  so  that  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  refer 
to  the  allusions  to  stalls  which  we  find  in  the  Historia 
major  of  our  own  Matthew  Paris.  At  Wells  there 
would  seem  to  have  been  stalls  in  Bishop  Jocelyn's 
time,  according  to  the  register  of  his  election  in  1206, 
now  in  the  library  of  the  dean  and  chapter.  They  were 
removed  in  1325  when  new  ones  were  ordered,  and  as 
they  are  then  termed  rtiinosi  et  difformes,  we  may  take 
it  that  they  had  already  existed  some  considerable 
time.  The  misericord,  or  something  which  seems  to 
correspond  with  it,  is  mentioned  in  several  documents 
of  the  twelfth  century.  The  actual  term  itself  appears 
in  the  constitutions  of  the  abbey  of  Hirsaugh  in 
Germany,  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  twelfth  century 
(Const.  Hirs.  seu  Gengembach  ex  MSS.  Einsiedln), 
and  it  will  suffice  for  further  early  references  to  quote 
316 


THE    MISERICORD 

the  following  from  a  Cottonian  MS.  containing  the 
rules  of  the  Carthusian  order :  '  Iteyn,  tunc  stent  m 
sedibus  suis  versa  facie  ad  alt  are  donee  ad  7nisericordias 
vet  super  /am u las  proiit  tempus  postidat  inclinent  a 
laiidibus  enim  vigiliae  natalis  Domini  tisque  in  eras- 
tinum  octabarmn  apparitionis  et  a  Pa  sea  in  crastinmn 
octabarum  Pentecostes  et  infra  octabas  Corporis  Chvisfi 
assumptionis  et  natalis  beate  Mariae  et  in  festis  xii 
lectionum  ad  misericordias  inclinamtis  omni  vero  alio 
tempore  procumbimus  super  formulas'  {Monastico7i. 
vi.  5).  A  little  bit  of  monkish  humour  is  inscribed  on 
a  fragment  of  a  choir  stall  in  the  museum  of  St. 
Andrew's  Church  at  Freising.     It  is  dated  1423  : — 

'  Cantet  in  choro,  sicut  asellus  in  foro 
Hie  locus  est  horum  qui  cantant,  non  aliorum.' 

A  habit  seems  to  have  grown  up  in  England  of  late 
years  of  using  the  term  7niserere  instead  of  7nisericord 
for  this  kind  of  console  beneath  the  movable  seat.  It 
is  quite  inappropriate  and  without  authority.  If  any 
other  term  besides  the  Latin  misericordia,  subsellia  or 
sedicula  might  be  suggested,  the  French  patience  or 
indtdgence  would  be  expressive.  But  we  may  be  very 
well  content  with  misericord,  which  is  happily  replacing, 
in  literature  at  least,  the  incorrect  7niserere.  Inci- 
dentally it  may  be  noted  that  the  name  7nisericord  \v2iS 
also  given  to  a  portion  of  an  abbey  where  the  indulgence 
of  eating  meat  was  allowed  to  the  old  or  infirm. 

Stalls  were  assigned  to  dignitaries  and  choir  monks 
in  a  certain  order,  and  one  uniform  system  seems  to 
have  been  in  vogue  in  pre-Reformation  times  in  England. 
Here  the  Benedictine  custom  was  that  the  stall  of  the 
highest  in  dignity  was  the  first  one  on  the  south  side, 
farthest  from  the  altar,  on  entering  the  choir:  the 
others  followed  from  side  to  side,  the  lowest  in  rank 
nearest  the  altar,  the  stall  of  the  claustral  prior  on  the 
north   side,  opposite  that  of  the  abbot.     In  cathedral 

317 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

priories  the  bishop  had  his  throne  on  the  south  side  in 
the  chancel.  This  fashion  is  still  followed  in  the 
English  cathedrals  and  in  the  college  chapels  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge.  At  Ely  the  bishop,  who  has  no 
throne,  and  whose  abbey  became  a  bishopric  in  1 109, 
occupies  the  abbot's  stall.  According  to  the  Ordinatio 
clericorum  of  Wells  (Creighton  MS.  in  the  library  of 
the  dean  and  chapter)  the  dean's  place  was  the  first 
returned  stall  on  the  south  side  at  the  entrance  of  the 
choir,  the  bishop's  at  the  extreme  east  end  on  the 
same  side.  'The  English  Benedictine  arrangement 
just  described  seems  to  be  followed  at  the  present  day 
in  only  two  of  the  many  Benedictine  monasteries  in 
this  country,  and  those,  curiously  enough,  are  not  of 
English  origin.  They  are  St.  Augustine's  Monastery, 
Ramsgate,  and  St.  Mary's  Abbey,  Buckfastleigh — both 
belonging  to  the  Cassinese  congregation.  But  in  the 
monasteries  of  the  English  congregation — Downside,^ 
Ampleforth,  Douai,  and  Belmont — and  also  in  those  of 
the  Beuron  congregation  at  Erdington  and  of  the 
Gallican  (Solesmes)  congregation  at  Farnborough  and 
Appuldurcombe,  the  plan  followed  is  just  the  reverse, 
i.e.  the  stall  occupied  by  the  abbot  is  that  nearest  the 
altar  on  the  north  side  of  the  choir,  and  the  western- 
most stalls  are  those  of  the  lowest  in  the  community 
[Downside  Review,  vol.  iv.  181). 

No  traces  are  left  of  the  ancient  arrangement  of  the 
bishop's  place  in  the  apse,  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  no 
stalls  remain  of  an  earlier  date  than  the  thirteenth 
century.  Viollet-Le-Duc  quotes  de  Verneilh  to  show 
that  Hugues  de  Toucy,  bishop  of  Sens  from  1143  to 
1 168,  had  had  constructed  some  stalls  of  oak.  But  the 
chronicler  responsible  for  this  statement  lived  in  1294. 
Still,  accepting  as  we  do  the  thirteenth  century  as  the 
date  of  the  misericords  and  stalls  of  Exeter  and  Poitiers, 
for  example,  it  is  evident  that  the  system  was  at  that 

1  Downside  has  lately  reverted  to  the  earlier  English  plan. 

318 


CHOIR    STALLS 

time  firmly  established  and  no  novelty.  Briefly  stated, 
the  arrangement  of  the  choir  fittings  which  has  obtained 
almost  without  change  from  their  earliest  introduction 
to  the  present  day,  consists  of  rows  of  seats  raised  on 
steps  one  behind  the  other,  in  number  according  to 
requirements,  on  each  side  of  the  choir  from  east  to 
west,  with  spaces  at  intervals  to  give  access  to  the 
higher  rows.  The  separation  between  any  two  stalls 
is  termed  the  parclose,  the  top  of  this  the  niiiseau,  and 
the  woodwork  at  each  end  of  a  set,  where  the  carving 
is  usually  richer,  \.\itjottde.  The  elbow  rests  are  slightly 
sloped,  so  as  to  prevent  the  slipping  of  the  arms, 
and  the  ends  enlarged  in  spatula  form  to  allow  two 
neighbouring  persons  to  rest  their  elbows  without 
inconvenience.  The  upper  part  of  each  row  forms  a 
kind  of  prie-Dieu  for  the  set  above,  and  the  rows  as  a 
whole  are  usually  returned  at  the  western  extremities 
so  that  a  certain  number  on  each  side  face  the  east. 
The  whole  is  enclosed  by  woodwork  richly  carved  and 
rising  sometimes  almost  to  the  roof.  This  enclosure, 
which  perhaps  was  not  fully  evolved  before  the  four- 
teenth century,  serves  as  a  protection  against  the  cold 
of  northern  climates,  during  the  recitation  of  the  offices 
through  the  hours  of  the  night,  and  may  possibly  be 
an  adaptation  of  the  Oriental  iconostasis  separating  the 
portion  destined  for  the  celebration  of  the  holy  mysteries 
from  the  rest  of  the  sacred  edifice.  The  imposing 
mass  of  screen,  the  richest  in  carving  and  the  most 
brilliant  accessory  of  the  choir  decoration,  served  also  to 
carry  the  canopy  or  dais  which,  as  it  were,  separately 
roofed  in  this  part  of  the  building.  Glorious  above  all, 
a  forest  of  imagery  and  ornament,  this  towering  mass 
of  architectural  work  is  carved  into  vaultings,  arches, 
pinnacles,  pendentives,  culs-de-la^npe  and  every  fancy 
and  vagary  derived  from  sculpture  in  stone,  supple- 
mented by  all  that  gives  distinction  and  grace  to  the 
peculiar  characteristics  of  wood,  and  affording  ground 

319 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

for  ev^ery  description  of  pictorial  sculpture  in  panels 
and  statuary,  in  low  and  in  high  relief. 

Coming  to  the  stalls  themselves  we  find  them  com- 
posed of  seats  which  can  be  turned  up,  bearing  on  their 
under  sides  a  projection  from  which  some  support, 
when  standing,  may  be  obtained.  This  is  the  miseri- 
cord, or  patience,  which  in  course  of  time  gave  oppor- 
tunities for  carving  on  it  all  manner  of  decorative  and 
pictorial  themes.  Far  from  being  confined  to  sacred 
imagery  these  indeed  display  very  often,  after  the 
joyous  fashion  of  mediaeval  times,  what  may  almost  be 
called  albums  of  quaint  conceits,  of  fun  and  humour, 
degenerating  at  times — at  least  according  to  modern 
ideas  or  squeamishness  —  into  a  certain  coarseness 
and  exaggeration  of  the  grotesque  and  a  twisting  of 
symbolism,  of  which  it  is  by  no  means  easy  nowadays 
always  to  discover  the  meaning  or  application.  Nothing 
is  more  difficult  of  explanation  than  the  fact  that 
wherever  we  find  these  things — abounding  in  almost 
countless  hundreds  in  ever}^  western  country — not  only 
do  the  general  character,  choice  of  subject,  and  the  treat- 
ment of  it  differ  but  slightly,  but  even  the  execution  is 
such  that — with  a  certain  allowance  for  changes  in 
costume  and  manners  during  a  period  of  three  centuries 
— it  would  be  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  all 
might  have  issued  from  the  same  workshop. 

To  complete  the  stall  there  are,  besides  the  parcloses 
and  joudes  already  mentioned,  the  projecting  elbow 
rests,  or  accoiidoirs,  and  the  knobs  on  which  the  hands 
may  be  placed  as  an  assistance  on  rising :  the  latter 
very  frequently  carved  with  heads — grotesque  or  other- 
wise— or  perhaps  an  entire  animal  or  a  subject  of  some 
kind.  Probably,  at  first,  the  joudes  were  openworked 
volutes  as  in  the  examples  given  in  the  sketchbook  of 
Wilars  de  Honecourt.  Later  on,  and  in  the  four- 
teenth century  especially,  birds,  animals,  figures  of  holy 
personages  and  incidents  in  their  lives,  and  a  diversity 
320 


DECORATIVE    CHOIR-WORK 

of  ornament  were  added  to  the  openwork,  as  well  as  to 
the  closed  portion  beneath.  At  Amiens  especially,  this 
figuring  of  entire  scenes  in  relief  was  carried  to  an 
extent  hardly  equalled  elsewhere. 

Almost  every  country  possesses  in  its  cathedral  and 
collegiate  churches  examples  of  decorative  choir-work 
in  which  wood  sculpture  forms  the  most  prominent 
feature.  They  are  in  such  numbers,  and  they  vie  with 
each  other  to  such  an  extent  in  the  richness  and 
elaboration  of  detail,  that  to  attempt  anything  like  a 
full  description  of  any  one  of  the  most  important  would 
require  a  volume  and  innumerable  illustrations.  It  is, 
therefore,  impossible,  within  our  limits,  to  do  more 
than  select  a  few  typical  examples  and  endeavour  to 
summarize  their  general  aspect.  For  this  purpose  we 
must  be  content  with  Amiens  in  France,  Dim  in  Ger- 
many, Windsor  in  England,  and  a  short  notice  for 
Spain.  The  choir- work  of  Italy  comes  more  under  the 
head  of  post-Renaissance  art  with  which,  for  the 
present,  with  some  exceptions,  it  has  not  been  proposed 
to  deal.  The  stalls  themselves,  with  their  misericords, 
must  also  be  treated  as  a  whole,  with  a  few  references 
to  the  most  striking  features. 

The  records  of  Amiens  seem  to  show  that  from  the 
earliest  times  of  which  we  have  precise  documents  the 
choir  of  the  cathedral  was  furnished  with  rows  of  stalls 
in  two  categories  :  a  higher  range  for  the  greater  digni- 
taries, and  a  lower  one  for  those  of  inferior  rank. 
Ancient  regulations,  which  go  back  as  far  as  the 
eleventh  century,  assign  them  thus  to  the  bishop,  deans, 
precentors,  and  minor  clergy.  But  they  were  evidently 
of  a  provisional  character,  and  the  troublous  times  of 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  prevented  the 
accomplishment  of  a  greater  scheme  which  had  long 
been  contemplated.  Until  the  thirteenth  century, 
furniture  of  the  kind — indeed,  furniture  of  all  kinds, 
if  we  may  judge  from  the  few  examples  which  have 
X  321 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

come  down  to  us — was  the  work  of  the  ordi nary- 
carpenter.  The  hucher  or  huchier  had  little  or  no  pre- 
tensions as  a  carver  or  figure  worker.  The  time  had 
hardly  arrived  when  a  more  important  part  was  to  be 
given  to  sculpture  in  the  fittings  of  churches,  and  when 
the  architect  was  to  determine  the  general  lines  of  the 
edifice  and  to  assign  to  the  hucher  his  particular  share 
in  the  work.  It  is  still  quite  uncertain  to  what  extent 
art  work  of  all  kinds  should  be  attributed  to  monks. 
As  we  are,  for  the  moment,  concerned  with  France,  it 
may  be  observed  that  Molinier  held  strongly  the 
opinion  that  the  idea  that  they  were  so  greatly 
responsible  has  been  much  overdone.  He  says  that 
though  in  Italy  the  religious  orders  furnished  wood- 
carving  to  a  considerable  extent,  there  is  no  documen- 
tary evidence,  in  France,  at  least,  to  prove  it :  not  even 
that  illuminated  MSS.  proceeded  habitually  from  that 
source.  However  this  may  be,  it  was  not  until  the  last 
years  of  the  thirteenth  century  that  the  hucher  began 
to  enrich  his  work  with  sculptures  in  relief  and  with 
figures  in  the  round.  We  have  then,  of  course, 
such  characteristic  pieces  as  the  coffer  of  the  Cluny 
Museum. 

We  are  beginning,  it  is  true,  in  this  woodcarving  of 
the  cathedral  of  Amiens,  an  account  of  choir-work  at 
almost  the  latest  period  of  its  full  development.  It  is 
of  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century,  but  although 
the  influence  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  is  marked,  here 
and  there,  in  some  ornamental  details,  it  is  still  Gothic 
in  general,  and  the  evidence  is  apparent  how  very 
strongly  influenced  the  architects  and  sculptors  were 
by  the  architecture  and  glorious  imagery  of  the  door- 
ways, screens,  and  other  parts  of  the  great  edifice,  the 
work  of  those  who  had  preceded  them  three  centuries 
before.  The  sculpture  of  the  choir  of  Amiens  is  a 
rdsumd  of  Gothic  art  at  its  culminating  point,  at  a 
period  when  it  was  slowly  flickering  out  and  destined 
322 


AMIENS 

soon  to  be  abandoned  in  favour  of  the  advancing 
Italian  style. 

Without  quitting  the  cathedral  we  are  enabled  to 
read  the  whole  story  of  Gothic  architecture  in  the 
country  of  its  birth,  and  not  far  distant  from  its  birth- 
place. We  may  read  also,  perhaps,  the  influences 
brought  to  bear  by  the  political  conditions  of  centuries  ; 
from  the  days,  at  least,  of  the  first  quarter  of  the 
fourteenth  when  the  kings  of  France  and  England  met 
within  these  walls,  with  all  the  pomp  and  state  of  the 
time ;  when  our  Edward  iii.  rendered  solemn  homage 
therein  for  his  French  duchies  to  Philip  vi.,  until  at 
the  end  of  that  century  the  flamboyant  style  became 
dominant. 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  see  in  the  small  sculp- 
ture of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries — for 
example  in  ivories — an  inspiration  from  the  greater 
sculptural  work,  not  only  in  architectural  details,  but 
also  in  the  figure  work.  But  comparing  these  with  the 
method  of  imitation  used  by  the  woodcarvers  of 
Amiens,  the  same  comparison  no  longer  applies.  In 
the  one  case  they  were  in  many  instances  rudely  counter- 
feiting a  general  effect  by  the  introduction  of  a 
decorative  framework  of  an  impossible  architecture  that 
never  existed,  and  that  was  not  intended  to  be  other- 
wise. In  the  wood  it  is  true  architectural  work.  No 
longer  do  we  have  these  little  scenes,  each  under  its 
arch,  in  a  kind  of  symbolical  shorthand,  or  like  little 
cinematographs,  but  a  broadened  out  conception  of 
statuary  tableaux  analogous  to  the  retables  already 
described.  We  shall  see,  also,  how  it  was  the  comple- 
tion of  a  new  system  of  ornamentation,  led  up  to  by 
slow  and  timid  steps,  during  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries.  No  longer  were  these  decorators 
contented  with  a  conventional  arrangement,  borrowed 
from  a  restricted  number  of  elements  in  the  flora  of  the 
country,  interspersed  with  representations  of  fabulous 

323 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

animals  drawn  from  the  bestiaries.  They  go  now  to 
the  everyday  life  around  them  and  reproduce  it  faith- 
fully, adapting  it  even  to  the  most  sacred  subjects. 

In  the  tendency  which  is  so  marked,  towards  the 
mingling  of  sacred  subjects  and  ideas  with  the  sur- 
roundings, costumes,  manners,  and  customs  of  con- 
temporary life,  one  cannot  help  recognizing  the 
influence  of  Flanders  and  of  its  great  schools  of 
painting.  Nothing,  of  course,  would  have  been  more 
natural,  when  we  consider  the  political  conditions  of 
the  two  countries,  the  near  neighbourhood  of  the 
Burgundian  provinces  under  a  common  sovereign  with 
the  Netherlands,  and  the  considerable  commercial 
relations.  All  this  conduced  to  a  spirit  of  artistic 
brotherhood  working  on  the  same  lines  and  governed 
by  similar  principles.  Contemporary  records  show 
also  that  the  assistance  of  Flemish  artists  was 
frequently  called  in,  as  well  as  those  engaged  in  the 
building  and  decorations  of  other  cathedrals  and 
churches  in  the  north  of  France  and  the  bordering 
provinces.  But  whatever  other  influences  may  have 
contributed,  and  however  strong  that  of  Flanders  may 
have  been,  the  work  at  Amiens  is  entirely  French  and 
by  French  artists. 

It  was  early  in  the  sixteenth  century  that  the 
chapter  of  the  cathedral  decided  to  reconstruct  the 
choir  and  stalls.  In  the  city  itself  was  Arnoul  Boulin, 
niaitre  menuisier,  to  whom  the  order  was  given  to  make 
1 20  richly  carved  stalls,  and  with  him  were  associated, 
for  the  storied  parts,  the  tailleurs  aimages,  Antoine 
Avernier  and,  later  on,  Alexandre  Huet.  The  canons 
of  the  cathedral  sat  as  a  permanent  committee,  and 
decided  every  important  detail.  Before,  however,  the 
plans  were  definitely  fixed  the  maitres  memiisiers  made 
prolonged  visits  to  the  cathedrals  of  Rouen,  Beauvais, 
and  St.  Riquier.  The  stalls  of  Rouen  still  exist,  and 
it  must  suffice  to  refer  to  their   important  connexion 

324 


AMIENS 

with  the  works  at  Amiens,  our  artists  having  taken 
ample  notes  during  their  journeys.  Meanwhile,  great 
quantities  of  oak  and  chestnut  had  been  collected  at 
considerable  expense  from  the  forests  of  Abbeville  and 
Saint  Valery,  and  especially  from  that  of  Neuville-en- 
Hez,  near  Clermont.  The  finest,  which  was  used  for 
the  bas-reliefs,  was  brought  from  Holland.  Huge 
pieces,  almost  entire  trees,  were  required  for  certain 
portions,  such  as  the  throne.  There  are  still  to  be 
seen  single  blocks  measuring  30  feet  and  more  in 
length.  We  have  the  names  of  the  principal  workers 
or  contractors,  but  information  is  wanting  regarding 
the  actual  carvers  of  the  astonishing  series  of  figure 
work  and  decorative  sculpture  in  wood  with  which  we 
are  confronted.  Boulin  is  generally  named  as  the 
principal  carver.  How  far  this  may  be  true  would 
involve  more  space  than  can  be  spared  for  the  investi- 
gation. We  may  be  content  to  accept  his  name  as  a 
representative  one.  Doubtless  the  practice  of  a  wood- 
carving  establishment,  under  the  direction  of  its 
owner,  was  not  very  different  from  that  of  the  present 
day.  Begun  in  1508,  it  is  not  until  eight  years  later 
that  we  find  carved  on  a  stall-end  the  name  and  inscrip- 
tion JAN  •  TRVPiN  •  DiEV  •  TE  •  povRVOiE  •,  and  not  for 
three  years  more  was  the  work  completed. 

Those  who  are  already  well  acquainted  with  the 
astonishing  variety  to  be  found  in  such  works  as  the 
choirs  of  Amiens,  of  Ulm,  or  of  Auch — and  there  are 
many  more  in  the  same  category — will  not  be  surprised 
that  one  renounces  at  once,  in  such  a  book  as  the 
present  one,  the  task  of  a  detailed  description.  A 
French  writer  has  said  of  the  first  that  its  study  is  the 
whole  study  of  religion.  It  is  this  and  more.  It  is  a 
study  also,  within  a  limited  area,  of  the  domestic 
history  of  the  period,  of  the  architecture,  manners  and 
customs,  trades  and  occupations,  costumes,  life  and 
character  of  a  city  and  of  a  people  at  a  time  when 

325 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

almost  a  revolution  in  thoughts  and  habits  was  taking 
place  throughout  the  Western  world :  a  revolution 
outwardly  expressed  by  the  transition  from  Gothic 
mediaevalism  to  everything  which  may  be  implied  by 
the  term  Renaissance.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  the 
pictorial  Bible  in  its  countless  figures  and  episodes 
drawn  from  the  whole  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments, as  it  had  been  exhibited  for  three  hundred  years 
at  least  for  the  instruction  of  the  people :  on  the  other 
a  freer  and  more  natural  rendering  of  it,  by  bringing 
these  episodes,  as  it  were,  down  to  the  period  of  the 
then  living  citizens  of  Amiens,  and  connecting  it 
with  the  domestic  life,  the  luxury,  costumes,  occupa- 
tions, virtues,  and  failings  with  which  they  were 
familiar. 

The  sculpture  which  covers  the  vast  extent  of 
surface  of  the  screen-work,  psLvdosQs,  joules,  and  dais, 
leaving  hardly  a  square  inch  unoccupied,  is  in  three 
distinct  series,  comprising  Old  and  New  Testament 
scenes,  episodes  in  the  life  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and 
endless  subjects  drawn  from  history,  allegory,  and 
morality,  including  some  entirely  profane.  We  begin 
with  the  Creation,  the  story  of  the  Fall,  and  the  other 
events  narrated  in  Genesis,  everywhere  meeting  with 
the  prophetical  and  mystical  interpretations  connecting 
them  with  the  Blessed  Virgin.  So  vividly  are  these 
things  expressed  that  we  hardly  seem  to  notice  the 
daring  poetic  licence  with  which  they  are  treated.  The 
buildings  and  accessories  are  those  of  the  time :  the 
coiffures  and  costumes  of  the  richest  in  the  case  of 
important  personages,  for  example,  in  the  up-to-date 
elegance  of  Potiphar's  wife.  Or  there  is  the  execution 
of  a  malefactor,  the  butler  of  Pharaoh's  household,  the 
gibbet,  and  the  executioner  in  the  official  dress  familiar 
to  the  people.  Or,  again,  an  illustration  of  table 
manners  of  the  period.  Moses  sits  at  the  banquet, 
richly  dressed,  the  king's  daughter  near  him,  in  a  long, 
326 


AMIENS 

close-fitting  dress,  with  jewelled  girdle  hanging  loosely 
in  front,  and  wearing  the  elaborate  steeple  headdress 
known  as  the  Jieiinin.  In  every  detail  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  learnt :  in  the  architecture  of  the  palaces 
and  streets,  the  furniture,  beds,  chests  with  their  iron- 
work and  locks,  couches,  chairs,  tables,  sideboards, 
cradles,  or  funeral  paraphernalia.  On  the  principal 
stalls  we  have  the  whole  history,  scriptural  and 
legendary,  of  the  Virgin  Mary ;  her  attributes,  and  the 
prophecies  and  symbols  connected  with  her.  We  have, 
for  example,  amongst  others,  for  which  legendary  lore 
has  been  ransacked  and  exhausted,  the  unicorn  pursued 
by  four  greyhounds  taking  refuge  in  the  lap  of  a  pure 
Virgin  ;  allegories  connecting  her  with  the  Incarnation, 
the  earthly  life,  culminating  with  the  crucifixion,  resur- 
rection, and  ascension,  and  finally  her  death,  the 
Assumption,  and  the  Coronation.  As  Ruskin  wTote 
of  it  :  '  The  people  of  Scripture  go  about  their  daily 
affairs  as  the  sculptor  saw  the  people  of  Amiens  go 
about  theirs.'  Throughout,  of  course,  the  costumes  of 
the  holiest  personages  are  according  to  hagiographic 
conventions. 

From  another  point  of  view  it  seems  a  repetition, 
yet  an  unavoidable  one,  to  insist  that  we  may  find  in 
these  scenes  a  complete  treatise  on  the  architecture  of 
a  city  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  guide  to  every  detail 
of  domestic  life  and  of  the  habits  of  every  class  of 
society  in  those  days.  The  costumes  are  of  the  time 
of  Louis  XII. :  we  remark  the  extravagantly  pointed 
footgear,  or  the  fashions  termed  en  gtiimbarde  or  en 
bee  de  canne  which  supplanted  that  a  la  pottlaine. 
The  ladies  of  quality  wear  the  hennin,  the  turban,  or 
the  stuffed  headdress  known  as  the  botirrelet — the 
fashions  of  Anne  de  Bretagne.  Every  class  is  repre- 
sented :  the  clergy,  episcopally  vested,  or  in  chasuble 
for  mass,  in  long  sleeved  surplice  or  in  almuces  as 
canons,    the   acolyte,    and   every  grade   of   the    minor 

327 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

orders — even  the  long-haired  giver  of  holy  water  :  the 
apothecary  in  the  costume  and  with  the  accessories  of 
his  profession;  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  schoolmaster, 
the  itinerant  musician  ;  scribe,  money-changer,  banker, 
merchant,  hiichier  or  cabinetmaker  and  carver — and 
we  remark  that  the  last  named  is  richly  dressed,  show- 
ing the  importance  of  his  position ;  tradesmen  and 
tradesmen's  wives,  ladies  of  easy  virtue,  shoemakers, 
tailors,  and  craftsmen  of  all  kinds ;  monks,  nuns, 
soldiers ;  the  confessional,  with  a  confessor  and  his 
penitent,  the  other  sacraments  of  the  church  ;  nurses 
and  babies,  pilgrims,  doctors  and  their  patients  ;  dances 
and  games  and  drinking  scenes,  dances  of  death, 
mystery  plays  ;  scolds  and  scandalmongers,  usurers, 
fools,  money-lenders,  children  with  their  toys  and 
hobby-horses ;  public  baths  and  people  bathing,  a 
woman  beating  her  husband,  a  coiner  making  coins — 
the  list  is  inexhaustible.  Every  phase  of  virtue  and 
vice  is  shown.  It  is  the  Su^nma  of  St.  Thomas  illus- 
trated :  it  is  humanity,  in  fact. 

One  special  figure  must  be  mentioned.  It  is  that 
of  Master  Jehan  Trupin,  richly  dressed,  working  with 
chisel  and  mallet  on  a  statue,  by  his  side  a  pot  of  some 
refreshing  drink.  But  whether,  and  to  what  extent, 
we  may  recognize  in  him  the  creator  of  this  great  work 
is  not  absolutely  certain.  Late  investigations  would 
seem  to  show  that  far  from  being  the  principal  sculptor 
and  designer  he  was  merely  an  ordinary  workman  ; 
perhaps  not  even  a  huchier.  It  is  hard  to  destroy  the 
legend  that  the  figure  is  that  of  the  Jean  Trupin  who 
for  some  reason  or  other  has  been  immortalized  by  the 
inscription  of  his  name  on  the  elbow-rest  of  stall  85, 
but  there  is  nothing  positive  to  support  it.  Again, 
Antoine  Avernier  may  have  been  the  architect  and 
designer,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  only  the  contractor. 
The  registers  show  that  Boulin  and  Alexandre  Huet 
went  to  Beauvais  and  St.  Riquier  to  see  the  chaires 
328 


PLATE  L 


AMIKNS   (  AIHEDKAI,.     PART   OI-    THK   SCULPTURKIi    WORK    ON    IHK   JOLEE  OK   STALL  31. 

KARLY   SIXIKENTH   CKN'H'KV 
I'AGE  3a8 


AMIENS 

there,  and  to  Rouen,  whose  stalls  date  from  1457,  ^^^ 
judging  from  results,  they  made  little  use  of  their 
notes.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  at  first  the 
misericords  were  to  be  ' garnis  de  feuillage  on  7navne- 
quins  et  pet  its  bestiaux  et  autre  chose  a  plaisance! 
Later  on,  it  was  decided  to  make  a  'suite  de  sujets 
bibliques^  which  was  a  novelty.  The  following  addi- 
tional names  are  known,  whatever  their  part  in  the 
work  may  have  been :  Linard  le  Clerc,  Guillaume 
Quentin,  Pierre  Meurisse,  and  two  lay-brothers, 
'  deux  fr^res  conveys  Cordeliers,  habiles  memiisiers 
d Abbeville',  who  were  engaged  in  15 10,  'pour  tra- 
vailler  aux  chaires  et  conduire  louvrage! 

It  is  said  that  the  task  of  counting  the  figures  to  be 
found  in  the  scenes  and  decoration  of  the  work  has 
been  attempted,  and  that  they  amount  to  3650.  Gothic 
in  its  sentiment  throughout — in  the  attitudes  and 
expressions,  for  instance,  of  the  holy  women  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross — mingled  with  the  mystical  art  of  the 
ages  of  Faith  as  it  was  nearing  its  decline  in  the  first 
decade  of  the  sixteenth  century,  we  have  in  other  parts 
of  the  decorative  details  an  evidence  of  an  acceptance — 
if  with  reluctance — of  the  spreading  teachings  of  the 
Renaissance.  But  if  Arnoul  Boulin,  in  the  pendentives 
and  culs-de-lampe  which  are  probably  by  his  hand,  was 
unable  to  resist  these  advancing  principles,  he  took 
from  them  only  w^hat  was  sufficient  to  brighten  the 
monotony  which  long  continued  association  with  the 
older  system  had  no  doubt  begun  to  make  felt.  Here 
and  there  are  columns,  here  and  there  are  the  putti  of 
Italy,  singly  or  dancing  in  a  garlanded  chain,  exquisite 
foliage  work,  cartouches,  heads  in  medallions,  cornu- 
copiae,  and  vases.  What  we  have  of  this  character  is 
of  fine  execution,  but  in  low  relief:  almost,  as  it  were, 
apologizing  for  its  presence  and  unobtrusive.  It  is 
interesting  also  to  notice  that  although  we  find  this 
influence  of  the  Renaissance  amongst  the  more  strictly 

329 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

decorative  portions  of  the  work,  and  subordinate  to  the 
generally  flamboyant  Gothic  character,  it  is  entirely 
absent  in  the  treatment  of  the  historical  and  domestic 
scenes.  Here  there  is  nothing  conventional  but  the 
faithful  realism  of  fashions,  manners,  and  customs  at 
Amiens  in  1508.  In  considering  the  work  as  a  whole, 
we  must  remember  also  the  horrors  of  the  Revolution- 
ary period,  and,  worse  still  perhaps,  here,  as  elsewhere, 
the  deplorable  taste  of  the  eighteenth  century.  All 
this  contributed  to  considerable  alterations.  A  row  of 
fleurs-de-lis  formerly  ornamented  the  panelling  at  the 
back  of  the  stalls.  This  was  removed  at  the  Revolu- 
tion, restored  in  18 14,  and  finally  taken  away  in  1831. 
A  great  deal  of  the  original  work  was  destroyed  in 
1755  at  the  time  when  the  new  high  altar  of  carved 
wood  was  erected.  This  still  remains,  its  huge  and 
vulgar  glory  and  other  adornments,  in  the  worst  pos- 
sible taste  of  the  time,  continuing  to  disfigure  the 
Gothic  chef-d'cBuvre.  Marvellous  it  is  that  so  much 
should  be  left,  despite  even  the  desecrations  at  the 
time  of  the  celebration  in  the  cathedral — as  at  Paris — 
of  the  Feast  of  Reason. 

It  was  Ruskin  who  said,  with  truth,  that  few  have 
written  quite  calmly  who  have  written  of  Amiens  at 
all.  No  one  better  than  he  could  appreciate,  also,  the 
technical  excellences  of  the  work,  the  masterly  chisel- 
ling, boldly  executed  by  practised  hands,  the  last 
almost  of  the  race  of  artists  by  instinct,  of  workers  by 
tradition.  He  has  given  us  The  Bible  of  Amiens,  in 
which  he  writes :  'Aisles  and  porches,  lancet  windows, 
and  roses  you  can  see  elsewhere  as  here,  but  such 
carpenter's  work  you  cannot.  Woodcarving  was  the 
Picard's  joy  from  his  youth  up,  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 
there  is  nothing  else  so  beautiful  cut  out  of  the  goodly 
trees  of  the  wood.  Sweet  and  young-grained  wood 
it  is  :  oak  trained  and  chosen  for  such  work,  sound 
now  as  four  hundred  years  since.     Under  the  carver's 

330 


AMIENS 

hand  it  seems  to  cut  like  clay,  to  fold  like  silk,  to  grow 
like  living  branches,  to  leap  like  living  flame.  Canopy 
crowning  canopy,  pinnacle  piercing  pinnacle,  it  shoots 
and  wreaths  itself  into  an  enchanted  glade,  inextricable, 
imperishable,  fuller  of  leafage  than  any  forest,  and 
fuller  of  story  than  any  book.'  The  Frenchman 
Didron  was  not  so  enthusiastic.  The  stalls  of  Amiens 
were  not  to  his  taste.  Wonderful,  then,  as  may  be 
the  beauty  of  this  great  work,  there  may  still  be  room 
for  differences  in  appreciation.  No  one  can  pretend  to 
compare  it  with  those  parts  of  the  cathedral  designed 
and  executed  at  the  earlier  and  purest  epoch  of  archi- 
tecture and  statuary :  with  the  pictures  in  stone 
throughout  the  exterior  and  interior.  To  take  the 
great  west  front  alone,  there  are  no  more  beautiful 
figures  than  the  Virgin  of  the  south  door,  the  Virgin 
of  the  Annunciation  and  the  Virgin  of  the  Visitation. 
And  for  those  to  whom  the  imagery  of  still  earlier 
times  appeal,  need  one  call  to  mind  the  Bean-Dieu 
of  Amiens  ? 

Whatever  the  cause,  whether  from  the  approaching 
Reformation  or  from  some  other,  Germany  is  less  rich 
in  stall-  and  choir-work  than  France,  although  the 
practice  and  love  of  carved  wood  in  the  fifteenth 
century  was  so  strong.  But  there  is  one,  at  least,  re- 
markable exception.  This  is  Ulm,  the  glories  of  whose 
cathedral  choir  have  been  sung  over  and  over  again. 
Once  more,  in  the  series  of  ninety-two  stalls  in  carved 
oak  with  their  accessories  of  screen  and  dais,  throne 
and  sedilia,  we  meet  with,  as  it  were,  an  enchanted 
forest  peopled  with  innumerable  figures  :  great  moral 
lessons  drawn,  for  the  sake  of  teaching  by  the  eye,  not 
only  from  sacred  history,  but  also  from  ancient  records 
of  pre-Christian  times  :  illustrated  by  great  heroes,  by 
writers,  poets,  philosophers,  and  rulers.  It  is  an  im- 
posing company,  the  men  and  women  figures  separated  : 
the  men  in  three  lines  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the 

331 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

choir,  the  women,  similarly,  in  three  lines  on  the  left. 
Pagans,  Jews,  and  Christians,  philosophers,  prophets, 
saints  and  martyrs,  form  together  a  grave  assembly,  an 
universal  council.  On  the  one  side  Socrates,  Seneca, 
Pliny,  Terence,  Pythagoras,  Cicero,  Moses,  David,  and 
the  Jewish  kings  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 
On  the  other  the  sibyls  :  Jael,  Ruth,  Rebecca,  Naomi, 
Martha,  Magdalen,  Ursula,  Elizabeth,  Agnes — to  name 
no  more.  All  these,  and  the  stalls  beneath  with  their 
misericords,  are  set  in  a  rich  framework  of  elegant 
tracery,  in  great  part  openworked  :  a  profusion  of  orna- 
ment under  charmingly  crocketed  ogee  arches,  the 
crockets  themselves  formed  of  trailing  vine  leaves  and 
grotesque  animals.  The  eye  is  everywhere  bewildered 
by  masses  of  luxuriant  vegetation,  amongst  which  in- 
numerable animals  and  human  figures,  more  or  less 
fantastic  or  natural,  climb  and  disport  themselves. 
Dragons  crawl  and  raise  their  terrible  heads,  lions 
crouch  and  prepare  to  spring,  dogs  of  the  chase  run 
hither  and  thither,  squirrels,  apes,  marmosets,  and  the 
smaller  denizens  of  the  woods,  snakes  and  snails  and 
every  creeping  thing,  mix  in  endless  numbers  with 
birds  of  all  kinds — eagles,  owls,  doves,  domestic  fowls, 
the  inhabitants  of  sea  and  river ;  with  all  zoology, 
known  and  fabulous,  and  with  man  himself  under 
every  natural  and  grotesque  aspect. 

All  this  is  repeated  and,  it  may  be  said,  summed  up 
in  the  finest  part,  for  design  and  execution,  of  the 
whole  work  ;  that  is  in  the  principal  stall,  or  sedilia  of 
three  places,  for  the  priest,  deacon,  and  subdeacon  at 
mass.  This,  the  earliest  executed  of  all  the  sculptured 
masterpiece,  is  the  work  of  the  elder  Jorg  Syrlin, 
father  of  Master  Georg  Syrlin,  who  has  carved  his  own 
portrait  figure,  in  the  round,  on  \\\^  jotide  of  one  of  the 
stalls.  Here  he  sits,  his  hat  on  his  head,  leaning  over 
and  contemplating  this  great  work  of  his  creation. 
And  amongst  the  crowd  of  Jewesses,  prophetesses, 
332 


ULM 

sibyls,  and  saints,  he  has  placed  also  the  portrait  figure 
of  his  wife.  That  so  much  should  have  been  done  in 
so  short  a  time  is  recorded  in  the  inscriptions  added 
by  him:  '  Georgius  Stirlin,  1469,  Incepit  hoc  opus': 
and  ' Jeorg  Syrlin,  1474,  complevit  hoc  opus.'  This 
German  chef-ci^ cenvre  of  elaborate  choir-work  was  then 
completed  thirty-five  years  before  that  of  Amiens 
was  contemplated.  Molinier  was  of  opinion  that  it 
does  not  deserve  the  extravagant  praise  which  has 
been  lavished  upon  it,  and  King  in  his  Study  Book  of 
Mediaeval  Architecture,  refers  to  it  as  a  medley  of 
subjects  due  to  the  unsettled  mind  of  artists  of  those 
days.  On  the  other  hand,  many  will  still  continue  to 
see,  notwithstanding  its  intricacy  and  elaboration,  a 
wonderful  balance  and,  withal,  a  certain  restraint  so  far 
as  was  compatible  with  so  comprehensive  a  scheme  ; 
and  in  the  sedilia,  taken  alone,  a  masterpiece. 

Details  of  the  family  of  Syrlin,  or  Siirlen,  are  un- 
fortunately almost  completely  wanting.  The  name 
first  appears  in  the  list  of  master  carpenters  of  the  city 
of  Ulm  in  1427 — that  of  Jorg  Syrlin  the  elder  in  1458, 
and  of  the  younger,  to  whom  is  attributed,  with  much 
other  work,  the  stalls  of  Blaubeuren  and  of  Geislingen, 
in  15 1 2.  Little  else  is  known.  In  fact  we  must 
consider  the  '  Master'  of  this  name  to  be  the  one  who 
executed  the  sculptures  of  the  choir  of  Ulm.  Of  the 
other  work,  which  is  unequal  in  merit,  it  is  not  easy  to 
be  precise.  The  family  name  may  even  have  been  con- 
tinued as  a  trade-mark  or  corporation.  In  any  case,  the 
one  who  has  left  us  his  self-portrait  and  that  of  his 
wife  amongst  the  innumerable  other  busts  and  figure 
work  of  the  famous  choir  was  a  great  artist,  and 
amongst  those  who  worked  in  wood,  an  incomparable 
sculptor.  In  his  own  portrait  he  represents  himself 
as  Virgil.  It  is  a  striking  head,  forcibly  reminding  us 
of  the  style  of  an  Italian  quattrocento  terra-cotta  bust. 
Throughout  the  series  Syrlin  shows  an  immense  talent 

333 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

as  a  portraitist,  and  this  is  the  more  remarkable  when 
we  consider  the  age  and  country  in  which  he  lived. 
Gothic  feeling  still  almost  exclusively  prevailed,  and 
his  absolute  realism  distinguishes  him  from  his  im- 
mediate predecessor  Multscher.  Certainly,  also,  the 
sculptor  of  such  a  group  as  the  '  Entombment '  of  the 
Zweifalten  Monastery,  of  which  a  cast  may  be  seen  in 
the  Kensington  Museum,  was  a  greater  artist  than  his 
Franconian  successor  Stoss,  or  even  than  Riemen- 
schneider,  if  we  should  judge  the  latter  only  by  the 
work  attributed  to  him  which  is  authenticated. 

One  more  example  from  among  the  fine  choir-works 
in  wood  of  extreme  elaborateness  must  be  referred  to 
in  general  terms.  It  is  that  of  Auch  in  the  Toulousain 
district  of  France.  Here  the  whole  choir  area  is  quite 
closed  in  with  a  mass  of  carved  oak,  which  separates  it 
from  the  rest  of  the  building  as  effectually  as  if  it  were 
a  small  church  by  itself.  The  date  of  its  construction, 
1529,  is  little  later  than  that  of  Amiens,  yet  although 
the  Gothic  style  is  still  apparent  in  the  stalls  them- 
selves and  in  the  pinnacle  and  canopy  work,  it  is 
dominated  by  the  pure  paganism  of  the  Renaissance, 
which  characterizes  the  beautiful  figure  work  in  low 
relief  of  the  panels  which  form  the  principal  feature. 
The  architect,  to  whose  imagination  the  general  con- 
ception is  due,  was  content  to  leave  the  greater  part  of 
the  flat  surfaces  at  the  disposition  of  the  sculptor. 
But  the  reign  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  world,  so 
dear  to  the  principles  upon  which  the  Gothic  decorator 
worked,  was  not  yet  entirely  abandoned.  It  still 
imposes  itself  and  flows  over  the  magnificent  traceried 
details  of  the  parcloses  and  joiides,  finding,  too,  full 
scope  for  the  exercise  of  a  fertile  imagination  in  the 
misericords  of  the  stalls.  Above  these,  and  surround- 
ing the  whole  of  the  choir,  runs  a  noble  row  of  figures 
of  saints  and  warriors  and  allegorical  full-length  statues 
on  ctils-de-lampe  pedestals.     These  with  the  dividing 

334 


i'LAJf.    1. 1 


COKTIOXS    01'   THE   rilOIK.     (ATHKDKAl     OI      V'l 


AUCH 

columns,  the  strings  of  dancing  piitti  and  the  ctds- 
de-lampe  themselves,  show  the  strong  Renaissance  in- 
fluence in  this  district  at  the  time.  The  artist's  name  is 
unknown.  A  Pyrenean,  he  was  no  doubt  strongly  im- 
pressed with  the  art  of  the  Peninsula  on  the  other  side 
of  the  mountains,  which  he  here  endeavours  to  imitate. 
But  he  was  at  least  a  master  of  his  craft,   and   has  \ 

treated  the  oak  with  as  much  ease  of  touch  as  if  it  had 
been  the  softer  walnut  which  later  on  supplanted  it  in 
these  districts. 


335 


CHAPTER    XVII 

SYMBOLISM  IN  CHURCH  WOODWORK— MISERICORDS— 

BENCH-ENDS 

IT  is  necessary  to  leave  the  general  consideration  of 
choirs,  and  to  restrict  ourselves  to  those  parts 
only  which — though  as  a  rule  hidden  from  view 
— possess,  nevertheless,  a  peculiar  interest  of  their  own. 
These  are  the  misericords  of  the  stall-seats,  and  their 
charm  is  not  only,  if  principally,  on  account  of  the 
subjects  represented  upon  them.  In  all  countries  they 
are  not  infrequently  examples,  also,  of  the  art  of  wood- 
carving  as  it  was  practised  not  only  by  sculptors  by 
profession  and  training,  but  also  by  the  mechanic  of 
the  workshop,  the  villager,  or  the  inhabitant  of  a 
monastery — the  amateur  artist,  as  we  might  say.  The 
same  will  hold  good  —  especially  in  England  —  with 
regard  to  the  bench-ends  of  village  churches,  and  even, 
in  some  cases,  the  rood-screens. 

Despite  the  destructions  and  degradations  which 
have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  religious  edifices  in  all  countries, 
despite  also  the  changes  of  taste  by  which  Gothic  art 
had  been  overpowered  by  that  of  the  Renaissance,  and 
supplanted  frequently  by  the  rococo  and  the  sham 
antique,  and  despite  the  perishable  nature  and  small 
intrinsic  value  of  wood,  these  misericords  still  remain 
in  almost  numberless  quantities.  It  is  obviously  im- 
possible to  treat  the  subject  here  in  detail  or  with  any 
completeness.  Thousands  of  examples  of  misericords 
are  noticed  in  the  transactions  of  the  provincial  archaeo- 
336 


SYMBOLISM 

logical  societies  of  every  country,  yet  many  more,  no 
doubt,  have  escaped  especial  attention. 

As  may  be  gathered  from  the  general  description  of 
those  which  will  be  presently  noticed,  the  real  meaning 
of  the  subjects  which  they  offer  still  affords  material  for 
investigation  and  conjecture.  Every  now  and  again 
the  key  to  these  cryptograms  appears  to  suggest  itself. 
As  an  instance,  there  is  the  subject,  so  frequently  found, 
of  the  woman  clothed  only  in  a  net,  riding  on  a  goat, 
which  will  presently  be  described.  There  is  evident 
symbolism  of  a  certain  kind  everywhere  employed  in 
these  carvings,  but  symbolism  which  after  a  time 
became  so  distorted  that  its  original  meaning  and  place 
among  folk-lore  were  lost,  and  the  subject  was  used 
only  from  its  comic  aspect  and  suggestion.  A  symbol 
has  been  defined  as  a  figure  or  image  employed  to 
represent  something  else  :  that  is  to  say,  something 
other  than  at  first  sight  would  appear  to  be  obvious  ; 
something  in  which  our  ingenuity  or  experience  of  the 
science  is  to  discover  a  deeper  hidden  meaning.  A 
misericord  with  Reynard  the  fox  carrying  off  his  spoils 
of  the  poultry-yard  does  not  merely  refer  to  that 
animal's  natural  propensities,  but,  especially  if  he  walks 
on  two  legs  and  wears  a  hood  over  his  head,  is  a  satire 
on  vices  which  are  to  be  found  even  in  a  monastery. 
This  is  still  symbolism,  even  if  degenerated  into  mere 
rid'cule.  A  signification  of  symbolism,  as  expressed  by 
Hugues  de  Saint  Victor,  is  the  allegorical  representa- 
tion of  a  Christian  principle  under  a  material  form  that 
may  be  seized  by  the  senses.  From  the  earliest  times 
and  in  all  ages  symbolism  has  had  an  attraction  for 
mankind.  In  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  we  are  con- 
fronted with  the  Tree  of  Knowledge,  and  the  last  book 
of  Scripture  is  an  allegory  from  beginning  to  end.  At 
least  we  are  left  to  discover  hidden  meanings  clothed 
in  poetic  imagery,  expressed  in  terms  suited  to  our 
limited    human    knowledge.     Those,    then,    who   con- 

Y  337 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

structed  these  books  of  imagery,  whether  in  picture,  in 
sculptured  stone  or  in  wood,  addressed  themselves  to 
the  illiterate  or,  at  anyrate,  to  the  mediaeval  mind, 
whose  knowledge  extended  no  further  than  to  imagine 
as  possible  the  existence  of  a  dragon,  a  griffin,  or  a 
creature  half  human,  half  animal.  The  intention  was 
to  instruct  the  ignorant  in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  in 
moral  theology,  and  in  some  part  also  in  natural  history 
and  in  the  habits  of  plants  and  animals.  It  is  certain 
that  human  nature  has  ever  delighted  in  representing 
animals,  or  half-human,  half-animal  creatures,  perform- 
ing human  functions,  and  endowed  with  human  virtues 
and  vices.  More  than  this,  our  nature,  from  earliest 
infancy,  takes  a  morbid  pleasure  in  the  horrible  and  in 
the  distortion  of  nature.  The  child,  as  a  rule,  prefers 
the  wicked  giant  to  Jack  who  slays  him,  and  turns  to 
the  Yahoo  in  Gulliver  with  more  eagerness  than  to  the 
gentle  Houyhnhnm.  And  when,  as  we  know,  the  most 
elderly  amongst  us  can,  for  the  moment,  seriously 
believe  in  the  reality  of  the  strange  inhabitants  of 
Alice's  Wonderland,  there  is  little  necessity  to  insist 
further  on  this  aspect  of  the  subject. 

A  systematic  examination  of  the  symbolical  or 
satyrical  representations  to  be  found  on  our  misericords 
would  show  that  many  of  them  are  to  be  found  with 
precisely  the  same  significations  or  train  of  thought 
on  the  monuments  of  the  earliest  times  of  old  Egypt, 
and  continued  throughout  her  civilization.  We  have, 
for  example,  on  a  papyrus  of  the  nineteenth  dynasty, 
an  ass  and  a  lion  singing  to  the  accompaniment  of  a 
lyre  and  of  a  harp  on  which  they  are  playing ;  a  flock 
of  geese  attacking  and  vanquishing  a  cat  (as,  on  the 
misericords,  a  cat  is  so  frequently  hanged  by  the  geese) ; 
a  lion  playing  draughts  with  an  antelope  ;  an  army  of  rats 
led  by  their  general  in  a  chariot,  assaulting  and  taking 
a  fortress  held  by  cats — and  so  on.  We  find  this  same 
satire  of  the  rats  reversing  the  order  of  nature  by  taking 
338 


SYMBOLISM 

the  offensive,  in  a  psalter  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
attributed  to  Gui  de  Dampierre,  in  the  Brussels  library  ; 
and,  in  our  day,  in  the  hare  going  shooting,  in  '  Shock- 
Headed  Peter.'  Nothing  appeals  more  strongly  to  us 
than  a  mocking  of  the  foibles  and  miseries  of  human 
life.  And  of  all  the  animals,  the  one  which  has  longest 
in  this  way  held  our  imagination  is  Reynard  the  fox, 
who,  on  Egyptian  papyrus,  on  the  frescoes  of  Pompeii 
and  Herculaneum,  in  stall  and  on  column,  in  painted 
glass  or  pictured  manuscript,  stands  for  the  embodiment 
of  cunning,  duplicity,  and  hypocrisy.  Nothing,  of 
course,  is  more  natural  than  this  comparison  of  the 
good  qualities  and  defects  of  man  with  the  instincts 
and  habits  of  the  lower  animals.  We  assign  to  man  in 
the  figure  of  the  latter  the  courage  of  the  lion,  the 
innocence  and  gentleness  of  the  lamb,  the  dog's  fidelity, 
the  suspicious  and  tricky  fox,  the  silly  goose,  the  dirty 
pig.  But  the  fantastic,  the  outrageously  deformed  and 
impossible  creatures,  with  eyes  in  the  foreheads,  with 
head  in  the  middle  of  their  bodies,  with  arms  or  legs 
of  excessive  disproportion,  or  the  most  monstrous  mix- 
tures of  parts  placed  anyhow ;  had  these  also  lessons 
to  teach,  or  was  it  only  the  ingenuity  of  the  draughts- 
man, exercised  to  the  utmost  in  devising  something 
hitherto  unthought  of  which  could  be  twisted  into 
allegory,  or  made  merely  to  serve  a  purpose  of 
decoration  ? 

The  earlier  illuminated  manuscripts,  generally 
speaking,  confine  the  decoration  to  the  intricate  inter- 
lacement of  the  capital  letters  and  borders  of  the  pages. 
With  the  greater  pictorial  illustrations  come  also, 
in  the  margins,  figures  with  satirical  applications, 
animals  and  birds  among  the  foliage,  with  no  other 
intention  than  beauty  of  ornament,  groups  and  hunting 
subjects,  and  a  certain  amount  of  coarseness  for  which 
the  different  manners  of  those  times  must  account. 
The  grotesque  began  to  be  frequent  about  the  tenth 

339 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

century,  and  especially  in  the  eleventh,  when  the  fashion 
was  pushed  to  the  utmost  extreme  of  mingling,  amongst 
the  floral  and  foliage  ornament,  the  most  impossible 
figures  of  beings,  neither  human  nor  animal,  composed 
of  limbs  contorted  and  misplaced  in  every  possible 
way  that  a  fanciful  and  often  morbid  imagination  could 
suggest.  Assuredly  this  was  not  always  for  any 
teaching  value,  but  with  a  sheer  purpose  of  distraction 
and  amusement. 

In  wood  sculpture,  the  symbolical,  other  than  that 
which  we  associate  generally  with  a  Celtic  origin,  is 
comparatively  of  late  introduction.  It  is  not  until  the 
fifteenth  century,  perhaps,  that  we  meet  in  it  such 
extravagances  as  those  which  became  but  too  common, 
such  as  the  representation  of  the  Almighty  as  an  old  man, 
or  as,  on  some  misericords,  an  allusion  to  the  Trinity 
in  a  head  with  three  faces,  three  heads  crowned  with 
one  crown,  or  three  heads  within  one  hood.  Primitive 
Christianity  was  undoubtedly  still  restrained  by  a  fear 
of  infringement  of  the  commandment  against  the 
making  of  images.  Lactantius,  St.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, St.  Augustine,  and,  in  later  times,  St.  Bernard, 
have  all  inveighed  against  abuses  which  may  result 
from  a  want  of  perfect  understanding.  Fearful  of 
these  abuses,  the  East,  whence  so  much  of  our  imagery 
proceeds,  hunted  it  out,  and  sent  it  to  us.^ 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  the  association  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life  with  the  expression  of  mystical  ideas 
became  an  absolute  rage.  The  artist  of  those  days,  in 
illuminated  manuscript  and  in  sculpture,  was  ever  on  the 
lookout  for  methods  of  combining  quaint  imagery  with 
some  underlying  teaching.  He  twisted  and  adapted 
pagan  traditions  to  Christian  dogmas,  and  ransacked 
classical  writings,  such  as  those  of  Aristotle  and  Pliny, 
for  ideas  and  semi-fabulous  stories  which  would  serve 

^  '  Nee  ideo  tamen  quasi  humana  forma.  .  .  .  Tale  enim  simulacrum  Deo 
nefas  est  christiano  in  templo  collocare.' — St.  Augustine,  De  Fide  et  S\mbolo. 


MEDIEVAL    ENCYCLOPEDIA 

his  purpose.  In  the  course  of  the  thousands  of  years 
during  which  animal  imagery  had  been  used,  this  method 
had  become  a  science.  It  had  its  rules  and  interpreta- 
tions, the  meaning  of  which  has  since,  to  a  great  extent, 
become  lost,  or  overladen,  from  century  to  century, 
with  fresh  accretions  and  adaptations.  The  animal 
imagery  of  this  science,  which  so  frequently  meets  us 
in  the  stalls,  misericords,  and  bench-ends,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  extensive  literature  which  is  known  under  the 
name  of  Bestiary.  If  we  desire  to  find  the  hidden 
meaning  and  subtlety  of  the  pictorial  symbols  we  must 
search  these  mediaeval  encyclopediae.  We  must  go  to 
such  works  also  as  the  Speculum  Universale  of  Vincent 
de  Beauvais,  the  Speculum  Naturale,  the  Speculum 
Doctrinale  or  Morale,  the  Speculum  Historiale  (or 
History  of  the  World  from  the  Creation  to  the  Last 
Judgment),  the  Bestiaire  d' Amours  of  Richard  de 
Furnival,  the  Speculum  Ecclesice  of  Honorius  of 
Antun.  To  name  but  a  few  amongst  them ;  The 
'  Mirror  of  the  World,'  of  the  thirteenth-century 
Dominican  Vincent  de  Beauvais,  written  by  order  of 
St.  Louis  of  France,  is  divided  into  four  parts,  the 
Mirrors  of  Nature,  of  Science,  of  Morals,  and  of  History. 
Earlier  still,  in  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century, 
Philip  of  Thaon  had  written,  in  England,  a  bestiary 
from  which  much  may  be  gathered.  He  explains  and 
illustrates  the  sig^nification  of  the  unicorn  and  the  trick 
by  which  it  was  to  be  caught.  The  unicorn  is  the 
Almighty,  the  maid  the  Blessed  Virgin,  her  lap  the 
Church.  So  also  the  favourite  imagery  of  the  siren, 
which  is  frequent  on  misericords — the  equivalent  of 
the  mermaid,  less  intelligently  used,  up  to  quite  late 
times  in  England.  The  siren  had  the  form  of  a  woman, 
a  falcon's  feet,  a  fish's  tail  :  as  a  mermaid,  with  long 
hair,  a  mirror  and  a  comb,  weeping  in  fine  weather, 
singing  in  a  storm  and  deceiving  the  mariner,  she 
represents  earthly  treasures.    The  sea  is  the  world,  the 

341 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

ship,  man's  body ;  the  steersman,  the  soul.  The  rich 
man  oppresses  the  poor,  and  causes  murders  and  ruin 
and  at  this  the  siren  rejoices,  but  if  the  rich  man  does 
good  she  laments,  and — as  in  fine  weather — loses  her 
prey.  At  the  same  time,  the  mermaid  was  not  invari- 
ably a  symbol  of  earthly  things,  or  the  allurements  of 
the  flesh.  Certainly,  in  Cornwall  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  we  find  in  it  an  allusion  to  the  double  nature 
of  Christ.  We  must  not  forget  also  such  other 
mediaeval  literature  as  the  Lapidaries,  in  which  the  pro- 
perties and  virtues  attached  to  classical  cameos  and 
precious  stones  or  gems,  and  the  subjects  engraved 
on  them,  are  set  forth. 

Works  of  this  kind  were  popular  both  from  the 
religious  or  secular  aspect.  Thus,  in  these  treatises — 
for  example,  in  the  Speculum  Naturale — we  are  taught 
by  beautiful  descriptions  of  country  life  and  the  occu- 
pations of  the  Christian  year  the  reasons  for  choosing 
the  signs  of  the  Zodiac  and  the  mystical  interpreta- 
tions to  be  derived  from  them.  We  learn  how  the 
seed  is  the  Word  of  God  ;  the  harvest,  the  end  of  the 
world  ;  the  threshing,  the  tribulation  which  visits  the 
sins  of  mankind.  All  the  joyousness,  too,  of  life  is 
expressed  :  the  singing  of  birds,  the  whisperings  of 
trees,  the  sports  and  feastings,  the  pleasures  of  the 
chase,  and  so  on.  It  is  the  history  of  man  fulfilling 
his  destiny.  The  symbolical  representation  of  the 
months  and  seasons  is  frequent  in  our  choir  sculpture. 
A  very  common  subject  on  misericords  is  winter.  A 
man — labourer,  or  perhaps  a  monk — warming  his  hands 
by  the  fireside.  Such  a  symbol  is  plain  enough  to 
read.  On  the  other  hand,  a  more  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  the  hieroglyphic  language  is  often  called 
for.  A  drinking  horn  held  upright,  horizontally,  or 
upside  down,  represents  the  beginning,  middle,  or  end 
of  January.  March  is  a  barrel,  or  a  leg  and  a  shuttle 
for  stocking-weaving  time ;  July,  a  bunch  of  fruit ; 
342 


SYMBOLISM 

August,  a  hop-pole.  Or,  again,  we  may  find  these 
indications  scattered  over  a  greater  subject,  so  that  our 
ingenuity  may  always  be  on  the  stretch  to  discover 
fresh  clues  towards  unravelling  the  whole  story  or 
teaching,  hidden  under  what,  at  first  sight,  is  no  more 
than  a  commonplace  representation.  Of  all  subjects, 
that  of  the  seasons  is  the  favourite  and  most  universal. 
But  the  symbols  employed  vary  considerably.  In 
France,  January  is  indicated  by  a  seated  figure  with 
two  heads ;  July,  a  lion  lashing  his  tail ;  August,  a 
woman  brushing  out  her  long  hair ;  November,  r 
hunter  with  bow  and  arrow ;  December,  a  winged  goat 
The  origins  of  course  are  obvious.  On  a  marble  bas- 
relief  of  the  thirteenth  century  of  the  doorway  of  St. 
Mark's,  Venice,  we  have  all  the  seasons  expressed  by 
figures  of  men  engaged  in  country  occupations, 
amongst  foliage  work,  birds,  vases,  and  the  like. 
Another  illustration  of  this  subject  will  be  found  in  the 
wooden  watching-loft  of  the  feretory  of  St.  Albans, 
carved  with  similar  imagery.  At  the  same  time,  it  is 
evident  that  while  every  possible  occupation  might  be 
twisted  into  this  particular  symbolism,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary always  to  do  so,  unless  in  the  case  of  a  consecu- 
tive series. 

There  was  no  doubt  a  considerable  amount  of 
unintelligent  copying  without  any  particular  intention, 
and  the  attempt  to  attach  a  symbolical  meaning  to 
every  detail  of  church  imagery  may  be  easily  exag- 
gerated. Even  when  apparently  obvious,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  bishop's  crook,  the  real  origin  is  so  com- 
monplace that  post  hoc  does  not  necessarily  imply 
propter  hoc.  The  older  carvings  exhibit  considerably 
more  decent  gravity  than  the  later  ones.  The  tendency, 
as  time  went  on,  towards  an  abuse  of  punning  conceits 
and  humorous  incidents  without  other  meaning  than 
pure  fun  and  a  desire  to  amuse,  and  towards  jokes 
which  are  by  no  means  in  the  most  refined  taste,  is  no 

343 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

more  than  the  freedom  of  manners  of  the  time  would 
lead  us  to  expect.  With  the  changed  ideas  of  propriety 
of  the  present  day,  we  must  transport  ourselves  entirely 
to  mediaeval  times  before  we  can  understand  how  the 
taste  for  the  satirical  and  grotesque  originated,  and 
pervaded  everything,  even  the  sanctuary  of  the  Church. 
We  must  remember  that  the  Church  was  the  centre  of 
the  life  of  the  age  in  the  smallest  village  as  in  the 
greater  cities.  Towards  it  tended  even  the  amusements 
of  the  people.  The  Feast  of  Fools,  with  its  irreverent 
buffoonery,  is  an  instance.  It  would  be  otherwise 
difficult  to  imagine  the  frame  of  mind  which  permitted 
the  pages  of  pious  books  to  be  bordered  with  pictures 
and  figures  of  fabulous  subjects,  or,  as  is  so  often 
the  case,  the  subjects  on  misericords  to  be  ironical 
satires  on  the  ministers  of  religion  and  even  on  the 
mysteries  of  religion  itself. 

The  Bestiary  writers  and,  through  them,  the 
carvers  of  misericords,  went  also  to  the  fables  of  classi- 
cal antiquity  for  inspiration.  In  these  they  found 
typified  the  strength  and  courage  of  the  lion,  the 
corrupting  viciousness  of  the  hyena,  the  spotless 
purity  and  healing  influence  of  the  plover  caladrius, 
the  wakefulness  of  the  basilisk,  and  that  every  living 
beast  or  bird  could  be  transformed  and  adapted  to 
some  human  attribute.  On  a  door  of  the  cathedral  of 
Puy-en-Velay  is  a  carved  and  painted  tiger  with  a 
movable  tongue,  which  works  by  a  counterpoise  as  the 
door  is  opened.  As  a  work  of  art  it  is  admirable,  but 
for  a  moral  application,  could  there  be  any?  Often, 
no  doubt,  as  in  the  illuminated  MSS.,  the  seeming 
satires  were  purely  gratuitous,  and  for  the  sake  of 
ornament.  The  artist  followed,  without  knowledge, 
perhaps,  of  symbolism,  those  who  had  preceded  him. 
One  thing  grew  out  of  another.  In  initial  letters  it 
was  easy  to  distort  the  curves  and  other  lines  by  a 
stroke  or  two  of  the  pen,  a  dot  here  and  there,  an  eye 
344 


CARICATURE    AND    SATIRE 

or  a  mouth  which  by  some  chance  suggestion  had  a 
kind  of  resemblance  to  the  human  or  the  animal.  The 
Trinity  with  three  heads  might  have  originated  in  such 
casual  distractions.  Certainly  the  nondescript  figures, 
such  as  those  all  heads  and  legs,  or  a  head  on  one  leg, 
as  on  a  misericord  in  the  Tufton  Street  collection, 
could  have  had  no  spiritual  teaching. 

From  these  early  suggestions  of  animal  or  human 
life,  derived  from  chance  combinations  of  lines,  the 
carver  of  stone  and  wood  opened  up,  when  the  idea 
reached  him — which  it  seems  not  to  have  done  before 
the  thirteenth  century — a  much  larger  and  more  public 
field  for  the  display  of  imagination.  And  still  the 
favourite  subject  on  gargoyle  or  console,  or  partly 
hidden  beneath  the  choir-stall's  movable  seat  is  the 
satire  on  the  hypocrisy  of  the  ill-regulated  life  of  the 
insincere  religious  :  it  may  be  intended  to  show  that 
the  monk  is,  after  all,  but  human  and  subject  to  the 
same  temptations  and  lapses  as  the  man  of  the  world. 
But  it  was  not  only  the  dissolute  priest,  the  debauched 
or  gormandizing  monk,  that  was  attacked  ;  in  their 
turn  the  feudal  lord,  oppressor  of  his  serfs,  the  venal 
judges,  the  sordid  usurer,  the  dishonest  tradesman  or 
innkeeper,  come  in  for  a  more  keen  yet  good-humoured 
and  tolerant  castigation  than  the  most  outspoken  press 
of  any  age  has  ventured  upon.  And,  underlying  it  all, 
there  is  evidence  of  a  struggle  between  the  classes  and 
a  hatred  of  the  rich.  Naturally  the  lady  of  fashion  and 
the  exaggerations  of  feminine  costume  do  not  escape 
the  lash.  A  very  common  caricature  to  be  found  on 
misericords  in  every  country  is  the  fine  lady  in  the  guise 
of  a  sow,  dressed  in  the  latest  fashion,  steeple  head- 
dress and  all,  mounted  on  high  stilts  and  playing  a 
harp.  Another  subject,  dear  to  the  artist  and  to  the 
sculptor  of  misericords,  from  the  fifteenth  century  at 
least,  is  the  fight  for  the  breeches — that  is,  between 
man  and  wife,  which  of  the  two  should  prevail.     It  is 

345 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  story  of  Sire  Hain  and  Dame  Anieuse  from  the 
romances  of  Hugues  Piancelles.  Or,  again  from  the 
romances,  the  history  of  Aristotle,  so  common  on  ivory 
caskets  and  mirror  cases  ;  the  philosopher,  on  all  fours, 
ridden  whip  in  hand  by  the  offended  beauty,  pointing 
the  moral  that  tant  com  cis  slides  durera — there  is  no 
fool  like  an  old  fool.  Or,  once  more  from  the  classics, 
where  Virgil  is  left  hanging  in  his  basket  from  the 
lady's  window,  treated  as  the  tales  of  Boccaccio  love 
to  recount  of  frisky  dames.  But  the  most  favourite 
subject  of  all  is  the  wily  hypocrite,  Reynard,  attired  as 
a  bishop,  or  as  a  hooded  friar  preaching  to  a  congre- 
gation of  silly  geese,  ducks,  fowls,  or  hares — up  to  as 
many  tricks  as  Tyll  Owlglass.  Yet  none  was  more 
full  of  varied  moral  teaching,  as  we  learn  from  many 
Bestiaries :  for  example  from  that  of  Philip  de  Thaon, 
where  he  explains  that  '  Gulpilz '  (Vulpus)  signifies  the 
devil  in  this  life.  When  he  finds  people  leading  carnal 
lives,  he  pretends  to  be  dead  and  observing  nothing  till 
they  enter  his  evil  mouth,  when  he  slays  and  devours 
them  :  so  acts  a  real  fox  in  attracting  a  bird. 

What  is  absolutely  incomprehensible  to  the  modern 
mind  is  to  understand  how  the  authorities  in  charge  of 
the  religious  edifices  could  have  allowed  to  exist,  always 
before  their  eyes,  representations  of  a  kind,  of  which 
not  a  few  remain  to  this  day,  which  outrage  the  most 
elementary  notions  of  decency.  These  are  simply  dis- 
gusting, and  could  have  served  no  moral  purpose  what- 
ever. It  is  indeed  difficult  to  conceive  what  was  the 
real  object  aimed  at  in  these  caricatures.  Was  it  not 
often  nothing  more  than  a  superabundance  of  imagina- 
tion, the  delirious  ravings  of  depraved  minds,  with  no 
other  intention  than  to  pander  to  the  crowd  ?  Nothing 
is  more  surprising  in  all  the  arts  of  the  Middle 
Ages  than  the  taste  for  the  horrible  and  the  unnatural 
side  by  side  with  the  most  refined  appreciation  of  all 
that  is  most  beautiful  in  the  real  and  in  the  ideal.  As 
346 


OBSCENIIIES 

Victor  Hugo  has  said  in  his  preface  to  Cromwell : 
'  They  surrounded  religion  with  a  thousand  original 
superstitions,  they  invested  piety  with  a  thousand 
picturesque  imaginings.'  Our  stalls  and  misericords 
show  us  the  most  tender  feelings  which  nature  inspires, 
and  as  if  to  prevent  our  minds  being  always  too  highly 
strung,  or  always  in  the  same  key,  near  by  are  depicted 
the  evil  propensities  of  mankind,  the  hideous  forms  of 
demons  and  of  monstrous  creations,  a  witches'  Sabbath 
of  eccentric  revels  and  a  fearless  exposure  of  the  most 
revolting  obscenities.  The  misericord  forms  so  im- 
portant a  part  of  our  subject  that  it  is  necessary  to 
allude  to  these  things  without,  however,  going  into 
details.  Every  country  can  produce  examples,  but  the 
greatest  offender — if  we  may  judge  from  the  number  of 
still  existing  specimens  to  be  seen  at  such  places  as 
Walcourt  or  Hoogstraeten,  would  seem  to  be  the 
Netherlands,  and  the  student  who  is  curious  on  the 
subject  may  be  referred  to  the  recently  published  works 
on  the  grotesque  in  Church  art  by  Maeterlinck  and 
Witkouski. 

In  other  ways  nothing  is  more  instructive  than  the 
part  played  by  Flemish  art  in  caricature  and  the 
satirical.  The  fifteenth  and  early  sixteenth  centuries 
abound  in  names,  both  in  Flanders  and  in  France, 
which  are  common  property  in  the  world  of  fantastic 
and  extravagant  satire — on  monks  and  popes,  on 
priests  and  pedants,  from  Rabelais  and  the  sayings  of 
Gargantua  and  Pantagruel,  from  Sebastian  Brandt  and 
'the  Ship  of  Fools,'  or  Jerome  Bosch,  to  the  elder 
Breughel  whose  method  we  find  also  imitated  by  our 
own  Hogarth.  That  our  English  misericords  are 
closely  related  to  the  Flemish  can  hardly  be  questioned. 
Not  infrequently  the  carvers  themselves  were  probably 
Flemish.  The  Flemings  themselves  undoubtedly  drew 
the  inspiration  for  their  misericords  from  manuscripts 
of  much  earlier  date  :  for  example,  the  eighth-century 

347 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

gospel  book  of  Maesych,  itself  inspired  from  more 
ancient  Gallo-Belgic  sources.  As  other  origins,  we 
have,  among  the  old  Flemish  and  French  romances, 
the  Enid  of  Henri  Van  Veldeke  of  the  twelfth  century, 
the  Romance  of  Troy,  the  Quest  of  the  San  Graal,  the 
Gestes  d'Alexandre  (thirteenth  century),  the  Chanson 
d'Antioche  of  Richard  of  Flanders,  the  stories  of  Tristan, 
of  Lancelot,  of  Merlin,  and  the  Mirror  of  Wisdom  :  all 
these,  and  many  other  dits  and  contes,  and  hundreds  of 
similar  mixtures  of  didactic  satire  and  mysticism,  in 
prose  and  verse,  the  joy  of  our  mediaeval  forefathers, 
were  laid  under  contribution  and  must  be  borne  in 
mind  in  the  study  of  misericords.  The  same  ideas 
persisted  until  quite  into  the  sixteenth  century.  In 
the  choir  of  the  church  of  St.  Sebaldus  at  Niirnberg 
there  is  a  frieze  in  wood  attributed  to  Veit  Stoss,  in 
which  we  have  a  dispute  between  the  devil  and  one  of 
the  blessed  for  a  human  soul.  It  is  a  procession  of 
naked  figures,  representing  popes,  cardinals,  and  bishops, 
to  the  gates  of  Heaven,  where  St.  Peter  receives  them  ; 
and  in  another  part  of  the  composition  a  naked  figure 
is  being  dragged  by  demons  to  the  mediaeval  repre- 
sentation of  hell  as  an  open-mouthed  monster. 

In  our  more  prosaic  age,  for  the  proper  under- 
standing of  these  things,  it  is  necessary  to  throw 
ourselves  completely  into  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
when,  if  the  chief  idea  of  the  master  builder  was 
beauty  of  form  and  proportion,  the  controlling  powers 
of  the  Church  compelled  him  to  carry  them  out  in 
accordance  with  the  teaching  idea.  Everything  must 
have  a  didactic  end  :  the  crucial  disposition  of  the  nave 
and  transepts,  the  vaulted  roof,  the  towers  and  steeples, 
and  the  thousand  other  details  of  every  part  of  the 
edifice.  The  field  is  still  open  for  a  comprehensive 
treatise  on  misericords  :  that  is  to  say,  on  the  whole 
subject  taken  by  itself,  and  its  story  as  told  in  various 
countries.      It  has,  necessarily,  the  closest   connexion 

348 


EARLY    CHOIR    STALLS 

with  wood  sculpture,  but  as,  notwithstanding  destruc- 
tions and  restorations,  these  carvings  still  abound 
everywhere  in  infinite  variety,  it  would  be  out  of  the 
question,  within  our  limits,  to  do  more  than  to  refer  to 
it  in  general  terms. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  origin  of 
stall-work  is  obscure,  and  even  if  we  may  connect  it, 
roughly  speaking,  with  the  date  of  our  earliest 
examples,  there  are  few  remains  of  the  work  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  fewer  still  of  the  fourteenth  : 
none,  I  think,  of  the  latter  period  in  France.  In  the 
fifteenth  they  become  frequent  enough,  and  in  the 
sixteenth,  the  Renaissance  introduces  an  entirely  new 
system  of  ornament  with  which  it  is  not,  for  the 
present,  proposed  to  deal.  Stall-work  of  the  thirteenth 
century  is  rare  in  any  country.  In  France  the  only 
existing  examples  are  those  of  Poitiers,  of  Saint- 
Andoche  de  Saulieu,  of  N.  D.  de  la  Roche,  near 
Cheveuse,  in  the  department  of  Seine-et-Oise,  and 
possibly  of  Lisieux.  Germany  has  some  remains  in 
the  church  of  Saint  Gereon  at  Cologne,  and  at  Xanten  ; 
Flanders,  at  Celles  and  Hastiere  near  Dinant,  and 
in  the  churches  of  Saint  Jacques  and  Sainte  Croix  at 
Liege ;  and  in  Switzerland  there  are  some  extremely 
interesting  remains  at  Lausanne.  This  early  stall- 
work  is  all,  to  a  certain  extent,  fragmentary,  and  has 
been  subject  to  alterations  and  additions.  The  same 
remark  applies  to  that  of  our  English  choirs  attributed 
to  the  thirteenth  century.  In  England,  especially, 
the  devastations  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  and 
the  neglect  and  bad  taste  of  later  times,  have  left  us 
little  else  but  the  misericords.  Of  these  we  have,  in 
the  first  place,  the  fine  set  at  Exeter  which,  if  we  may 
accept  the  date  which  it  is  usual  to  assign  to  them, 
may  rank  possibly  as  the  most  ancient  in  existence. 
Besides  these,  there  are  early  examples  at  Chichester, 
and  at  Hemingborough,  Yorks,  a  few  at  Fordham  in 

349 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Cambridgeshire,  three  at  Christchurch,  Hants,  and 
one  at  Westminster  amongst  the  others  of  much  later 
date,  and  three  at  Sutton  Courteney,  Berks. 

The  stalls  of  Poitiers,  numbering  seventy,  as  they 
exist  at  present,  are  of  oak,  the  ornamentation  in 
general  characterized  by  the  simplicity  and  refinement 
of  the  golden  age  of  Gothic  art.  They  are  usually 
supposed  to  date  from  the  year  1239,  and  ascribed  to 
Jean  de  Moleon,  or  de  Melun,  the  bishop  of  the  diocese 
then  reigning,  but  if  he  died  in  that  year  they  would 
be  in  that  case  still  earlier.  Those  of  Notre  Dame  de 
la  Roche,  again  seventy  in  number,  are  of  the  same 
character,  but  unfortunately  in  a  mutilated  and  badly 
restored  condition,  and  were  made,  it  is  supposed,  by 
the  same  Bishop  Jean  de  Melun,  of  whose  death,  the 
date  just  given  is  quite  uncertain.  The  workmanship 
is  again  somewhat  rudimentary,  but  the  simple  design 
of  slender  columns,  plain  fenestrations,  and  purity  of 
style  give  them  the  highest  historical  interest  in  con- 
nexion with  the  early  forms  and  decoration  of  choir 
stalls.  The  same  applies  to  the  fragments  remaining 
at  Saint-Andoche  de  Saulieu.  They  are  of  the  last 
years  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  period  of  transition, 
when  the  huchier  was  beginning  to  work  on  more 
independent  lines.  He  was  no  longer  contented  to 
use  only  the  charming  window  tracery,  of  which  he  had 
become  a  master,  in  the  furniture  of  the  period,  in  his 
panelling  and  in  the  chests  and  coffers  already  referred 
to  and  illustrated.  He  was  beginning,  as  we  find  here, 
to  enrich  his  work  with  figures  in  low  relief  and  with 
statues  and  statuettes  and  scenes  from  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  on  the  outer  sides  of  his  stall-ends, 
the  other  surfaces  covered  with  foliage  work  and 
imaginary  animals.  Yet  throughout  it  all  was  a  note 
of  restraint  and  simplicity  distinguishing  it  from  the 
over  profusion  of  detail  which  reigned  in  the  following 
century.     The  same  system  continues  to  prevail  in  the 

350 


PLATE    I.I  I 


\^ 


(,..^ 


/ 


3 


^? 


^./Z 


//     : 


I'V: 


WILARS    DE    HONECOURT 

stall-work  of  Lisieux — a  similar  refined  ornamentation 
in  the  end-panels  of  openworked  foliage  and  of  animals' 
heads  in  the  misericords. 

With  these  two  early  examples  of  choir  stalls  we 
may  connect  those  of  St.  Gereon  at  Cologne  and  the 
early  stalls,  now  removed  and  replaced  by  later  ones, 
of  the  cathedral  of  Lausanne.  To  go  no  further  than 
these  two  churches,  we  have  in  that  most  delightful 
sketchbook  of  Wilars  de  Honecourt,  designs  for  and 
a  description  of  the  terminating  standard  of  a  range 
of  stalls  of  similar  design  to  the  stalls  of  St.  Gereon, 
and  a  sketch  of  two  men  wrestling,  which  has  so 
much  analogy  with  a  bas-relief  on  a  poupde  standard 
at  Lausanne  that  the  connexion  with  the  thirteenth- 
century  architect  seems  evident.  What  would  be  of 
importance  to  determine  is  the  part  which  the  designs 
of  Wilars  played  in  connexion  with  the  stalls  of 
Lausanne,  or  whether,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sketches 
were  made  from,  or  from  recollection  of,  the  already 
existing  stalls.  The  subject  cannot  here  be  followed 
in  detail.  It  must  suffice  to  refer  the  reader  to  the 
dissertations  on  the  Sketch-Book  by  MM.  Quicherat, 
Lassus,  Darcel,  and  Willis,  the  last  of  whom  pub- 
lished it  in  1859  in  facsimile,  with  an  English  transla- 
tion of  the  notes  of  Lassus  and  references  to  the 
others.  Our  illustrations  are  taken  from  the  fac- 
similes. On  the  verso  of  the  twenty-seventh  leaf  we 
have :  '  Vesci  tine  legiere poupde  duns  estans  a  i  en t redo s 
a  tote  le  clef!  That  is,  '  Here  is  an  easily  made  poiipee 
for  a  stall  with  one  partition  with  the  clef.'  The 
drawing  represents  the  carved  high  standard  which 
terminates  a  range  of  stalls  and  the  ordinary  partition, 
or  parclose,  which  separates  every  stall  from  its  neigh- 
bour. On  the  twenty-ninth  leaf  is  another  and  richer 
design  to  which  the  word  poupde  is  applied.  This 
shows  that,  in  the  descriptive  title  just  quoted,  the 
\N  ox  A  poupde  designates  the  standard,  and  consequently 

351 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

entreclos  is  the  partition.  From  this  we  may  deduce 
that  the  florid  ornament  to  which,  in  England,  the 
terms  '  poppy  '  and  *  poppy  head '  have  been  applied, 
can  only  claim  the  latter  as  being  the  head  of  the 
former.  The  clef  of  the  entreclos  is  the  richly  moulded 
cap  which  receives  and  supports  it,  and  is  curved  back- 
wards to  form  a  convenient  elbow  and  leaning  place — 
in  modern  French  joinery  terms  the  nuiseau  or  nosing. 
Lassus  remarks  that  this  potipde  is  of  the  same  form 
as  in  the  stalls  of  St.  Gereon  with  only  the  difference 
that  in  the  latter  a  statue  is  added  in  front  of  the 
double  volutes  (Wilson).  The  recto  of  the  twenty- 
ninth  leaf  on  which  is  the  drawing  of  a  more  elaborate 
Poiipde  has  :  '  Si  vus  voles  Men  ovrer  dime  bone  poupde 
pour  line  est  aide  a  cesti  vus  tenes' \  that  is — 'If  you 
wish  to  make  a  very  fine  potipde  for  a  stall  you  may 
take  this  design.'  We  have  here,  then,  examples  of  a 
legidre  poupee  easy  to  make  and  of  a  bone  poiipde  which 
means  one  in  which  nothing  is  spared  in  the  way  of 
elaboration  of  design  and  of  workmanship.  It  is  to 
such  an  example  as  the  latter  that  those  of  Lisieux  and 
N.  D.  de  la  Roche  have  analogy. 

The  ancient  stalls  of  Lausanne,  after  having  suffered 
much  neglect  for  many  years,  are  now  reduced  to  ten 
and,  without  their  misericords,  preserved  in  the 
chateau  of  Chillon.  There  are  many  large  figures  on 
the  panels  of  the  parcloses,  besides  the  wrestlers,  and 
these,  together  with  the  foliage  openwork,  though 
boldly  designed  and  vigorously  executed  in  oak,  and 
inspired  by  French  models  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
lack  their  spirit  and  grace.  What  may  have  been  due 
to  Wilars  it  is  impossible  to  say.  '  I  have  been  in 
many  lands,  as  this  book  shows,'  he  writes  in  his 
album,  and  he  was  certainly  at  Lausanne,  for  it  con- 
tains a  sketch  of  the  rose  window  of  the  cathedral. 
He  may,  then,  have  sketched  also  the  wrestlers  of 
the  stalls. 
352 


GERMAN    STALL    WORK 

A  few  words  only  can  be  given  to  the  stall  work  of 
Germany,  although  this  is  in  many  ways  of  consider- 
able importance.  Otte,  in  his  Handbuch  der  Kirch- 
lichen  Kunstarchdologie  (see  Bibliography),  gives  a 
very  long  list  of  that  still  existing,  amongst  which  the 
stalls  of  Xanten,  Cologne,  and  Marburg  may  date  back, 
perhaps,  to  the  thirteenth  century.  At  Xanten  we  find 
on  the  joudes  a  similar  system  of  simple  conventional 
foliage  work  to  that  of  the  example  of  a  bone  poupde  in 
the  album  of  Wilars  de  Honecourt,  which  has  already 
been  noticed  and  illustrated.  At  Cologne  two  jouees 
are  terminated  by  full-length  figures  of  St.  Gereon  and 
St.  Ursula.  Didron  {Ann.  archdol.  ix.  130) — very  un- 
justly, I  think — compares  these  figures  most  unfavour- 
ably with  the  work  of  the  sculptor  of  the  stalls  of 
Poitiers.  He  condemns  the  drapery  broken  up  into 
folds,  and  as  if  rudely  chopped  out  with  a  knife,  the 
wooden-doll-like  limbs,  the  coarse  heads,  and  so  on. 
There  are  excellent  reproductions  in  the  gallery  of  casts 
in  the  Kensington  Museum,  and  judging  even  from 
these — admitting  the  French  inspiration,  and  that  the 
German  artist  may  not  have  completely  caught  the 
French  feeling  of  the  period  in  all  its  elegance — it 
should  be  impossible  to  deny  their  general  charm,  the 
sweetness  of  the  head  of  St.  Ursula,  the  grace  of  the 
attitudes  and  the  whole  spirit,  entirely  of  the  period. 

Long  after  almost  every  description  of  sculpture 
was  beginning  to  abandon  itself  with  docility  to 
the  influence  of  the  Renaissance,  wood-carving  in 
Germany,  as  we  have  seen,  and  especially  for  stall  work, 
still  remained  faithful  to  Gothic  traditions.  The 
great  influx  of  German  sculptors  into  Italy,  and  their 
residence  there,  could  not  have  failed  to  have  consider- 
able influence.  So  it  is,  perhaps,  that  even  there,  so 
late  as  1464,  the  stalls  of  Pienza  are  still  Gothic,  and 
at  Assisi  we  find  the  same  foliage-volute  poitpdes  as 
those  to  which  attention  has  just  been  drawn. 

z  353 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

The  stall  work  of  the  Netherlands,  however  inter- 
esting, must  give  way  to  considerations  of  space,  of 
which  other  classes  of  its  wood-carving  have  already 
occupied  a  considerable  proportion.  Amongst  the  finest 
examples  of  the  fifteenth  century  are  those  of  Diest 
(1491),  and  above  all  the  admirable,  but  unfortunately 
incomplete,  setof  the  church  of  Saint  Pierre,  at  Louvain. 
But,  everywhere,  a  good  deal  of  the  fine  panelling  of 
the  choirs  with  the  canopied  dais  has  been  removed  in 
compliance  with  the  new  taste  of  the  seventeenth, 
eighteenth,  and  early  nineteenth  centuries.  Aerschot 
formerly  possessed  some  marvellously  fine  Gothic  stalls, 
but  about  1833  the  upper  parts  were  taken  off  and  sold. 
Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  little  church  of 
Gatton  in  Surrey  will  remember  the  panelling  filling 
it,  which  is  of  the  finest  period  of  pointed  tertiary. 
This,  with  the  stalls,  is  said  to  have  been  acquired  in 
Belgium  in  the  early  part  of  last  century.  Possibly 
it  might  be  traced  to  Aerschot.  The  very  fine  choir 
and  stall  work  of  Holland  can  also,  for  the  present,  be 
briefly  mentioned  only.  A  great  deal  is  late  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  century  Gothic.  Such,  for  example,  is 
the  splendid  carving  of  the  stalls  of  the  Broederkerk 
at  Bolsward,  of  the  Hervormdekerk  of  Breda  {the  joue^s 
especially),  of  the  Grootekerk  of  Dordrecht,  and,  of  the 
late  transitional  style,  of  the  Grootekerk  at  Haarlem, 
with  its  fine  figure  sculpture,  grotesques,  foliage  and 
flower -work,  and  the  great  and  elaborately  carved 
churchwardens'  pew  of  twelve  seats. 

It  seems  generally  to  be  agreed  nowadays  to  apply 
the  term  misericord  to  the  carved  subjects  or  ornaments 
beneath  the  supplementary  support  of  the  seat  of  a 
choir  stall.  Were  it  not  that  the  expression  has  be- 
come accepted,  a  more  correct  one,  perhaps,  would  be 
the  corbel,  or  bracket,  for  their  function  is  to  support 
the  misericord  itself.  From  the  very  beginning  of  the 
system  they  have  been  taken  over  and  over  again  from 

354 


MISERICORDS 

the  stone  sculpture  of  the  period,  or  of  earlier  dates — 
from  the  capitals  of  pillars,  from  busts,  ciils-de-la7npe, 
or  brackets  with  parallel  sides.  If  not  always  directly 
derived  from  these — for  there  is  equally  to  be  observed 
a  remarkable  originality — they  are  identical  in  feeling, 
in  variety,  and  in  execution,  and  in  the  case  of  grotesques 
and  moral  lessons  the  resemblance  is  absolute.  There 
is  one  very  striking  difference  between  the  style  or  form 
of  the  ornamentation  in  England  and  on  the  Continent. 
In  England,  instead  of  being  so  essentially  in  bracket 
form,  the  subjects  are  spread  out  on  either  side,  and 
these  extensions  have  been  given  the  name  of  supporters, 
side  lobes,  cusps,  or  volutes.  I  do  not  know  that  this 
difference  in  style  between  our  own  and  the  Continental 
practice  has  been  before  alluded  to  by  writers  on  the 
subject.  So  far  as  my  own  observation  goes,  though 
we  have  examples  in  England  of  misericords  without 
such  supporters  (Mr.  E.  S.  Prior  says  that  it  was  not 
until  about  1330  that  the  practice  came  in),  abroad  they 
are  not  found  at  all,  or  at  least  only  in  such  elementary 
forms  as  in  a  misericord  at  Albi,  where  there  is  no 
central  subject  but  only  heads  or  masks  at  the  ex- 
tremities of  the  scrolled  edge.  The  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum  has  until  quite  recently  been,  with 
the  exception  of  one  small  fragment,  entirely  destitute 
of  any  example  of  a  misericord,  either  English  or 
foreign.  In  1910,  however,  some  sixteen  specimens,  of 
one  character  or  set,  were  presented  by  Mr.  FitzHenry. 
Their  previous  history,  or,  as  we  may  say,  dtat  civil, 
is  entirely  unknown.  They  are  at  present  officially 
described  as  English,  fifteenth-century  work.  We  have 
in  them,  at  least,  examples  of  the  bracket,  or  corbel- 
form  of  misericord  ornament,  without  supporters  or 
ornamental  side  lobes.  Without,  however,  taking  this 
factor  into  account  at  all,  there  would  seem  to  be  little 
to  support  such  an  ascription  as  an  English  origin. 
The  shape  of  the  seats  themselves,  in  plan,  does  not 

355 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

correspond  with  the  systems  followed  in  England,  and 
something  also  might  be  said  of  the  form  of  the  hinges. 
As  to  the  subjects,  the  style  and  treatment  are  inferior 
and  wanting  in  the  feeling  and  didactic  applications 
which  were  usual.  On  the  whole,  notwithstanding 
the  venerable  and  much  worm-eaten  appearance,  there 
must  still  remain  grave  reason  to  doubt  the  genuine- 
ness. In  default  of  documentary  evidence  and  bearing 
in  mind  a  prevailing  habit  of  copying  from  already 
existing  sculpture,  the  dates  of  our  earliest  misericords 
— such,  for  example,  as  those  of  Exeter — are  so  un- 
certain that  the  question  of  the  addition  of  the  volutes  is 
not  without  considerable  importance.  Types  or  orna- 
ment, and  even  costumes  and  armour  form  no  infallible 
criteria.  There  was  doubtless  a  persistence  in  their 
use,  and  anachronisms,  especially  in  remote  districts, 
would  not  perhaps  have  been  considered  of  importance. 
It  is  neither  called  for,  nor  would  it  be  possible  to 
follow  these  subjects,  here,  in  a  systematic  or  exhaustive 
way.  It  will  suffice  to  summarize  a  few  of  the  most 
striking  amongst  them.  As  might  naturally  be  ex- 
pected from  the  position  which  these  carvings  occupy, 
sacred  scenes  or  figures  of  holy  personages  are  unusual. 
Still,  they  are  to  be  found,  and  some  of  this  class  may 
first  of  all  receive  attention  : — 

Scriptural  and  other  sacred  subjects. — At  Gayton  there 
are  many,  including  Adam  and  Eve,  Noah  and  the  Ark,  the 
decollation  of  St.  John,  St.  Ursula,  the  three  Maries  at  the 
Sepulchre,  the  Last  Judgment.  At  Gloucester,  the  Shepherds 
and  the  Star  in  the  East.  At  Chester,  the  Coronation  of  the 
B.V.M.  At  Lincoln,  the  Ascension,  the  Visit  of  the  Magi, 
the  Resurrection,  the  Assumption.  At  Ely,  the  Temptation 
in  the  Wilderness.  At  other  places  the  above  are  repeated, 
together  with  others  :  Worcester  holding  the  record,  perhaps, 
for  scriptural,  chiefly  Old  Testament,  subjects,  and  Lincoln  for 
legends  of  the  B.V.M.  Three  faces  or  heads  joined  together, 
or  within  the  same  hood,  as  in  the  Collegiate  Church  of  Cham- 


MISERICORDS 

peaux  in  France,  are  fairly  frequent,  and  may  have  some 
connexion  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  At  Cockington 
we  find  the  EvangeHsts  with  their  emblems,  on  misericords 
which  are  of  high  interest  as  typical  of  English  figure  work  of 
the  time.  St.  George,  of  course,  occurs,  and  the  legend  of  the 
dragon;  St.  Margaret,  St.  Martin  dividing  his  cloak,  St.  Giles 
and  his  hind,  St.  Werburgh,  St.  Mildred,  and,  without  pretend- 
ing to  complete  the  list,  St.  Veronica  and  the  miraculously 
imprinted  handkerchief. 

Trades  and  occupations. — These  subjects  are  very  common, 
and  many  of  them  similarly  treated  in  all  countries,  especially 
that  of  the  hucher  or  7nenuisier  carving  or  working  at  his 
bench,  as  on  the  very  early  misericords  at  Poitiers,  or  the  carver's 
own  portrait  as  at  Amiens  and  Ulm.  At  All  Saints,  Welling- 
borough (14th  century),  he  wears  a  tippet  fastened  with  a  rose- 
like brooch,  the  sleeves  of  his  doublet  puffed  at  the  shoulders. 
A  table  is  in  front  of  him,  and  he  is  carving  a  rose.  To  name 
but  a  few  others,  we  have  the  carver  or  carpenter  at  the  church 
of  Saint  Martial,  Bordeaux,  and  at  Presles  (Seine-et-Oise),  at 
Brampton  a  carver  and  a  tailor,  at  Great  Malvern  a  physician 
and  a  sick  man,  at  St.  David's  boatbuilders  at  work,  at  Corbeil 
and  Rouen  a  cobbler. 

Fox  preaching'  and  satires  against  the  clergy. — This  very 
favourite  satirical  subject,  with  Reynard  as  a  monk,  a  bishop,  or 
a  preacher,  in  endless  variety,  is  common  everywhere.  At 
Windsor  we  find  him  with  stolen  geese  in  his  hood  (in  his  cowl, 
it  is  but  too  frequently  the  custom  wrongly  to  call  it) ;  at 
Beverley,  Nantwych,  and  other  places,  the  stolen  geese  again  ; 
at  Boston,  as  a  bishop  preaching  to  poultry  and  rabbits ;  at 
Bristol  an  ape,  serving  as  clerk,  has  caught  one  of  the  fowls, 
while  a  number  of  geese  in  the  back  row  are  asleep  as  the 
sermon  proceeds  ;  at  Windsor,  an  ape,  wearing  a  stole,  is 
blessing  a  dog ;  at  Saint  Exupere,  Corbeil,  there  is,  or  was,  a 
bishop  with  a  fool's  bauble  ;  at  Kempen,  a  peasant  is  smash- 
ing a  quantity  of  eggs  with  a  flail — a  satire  against  the  mendi- 
cant friars.  Retaliation  frequently  occurs,  as  at  Sherborne, 
where  the  fowls  hang  the  fox,  or  the  rats  the  cat.  Satire  in 
connexion  with  religion  was  naturally  embittered  in  Reforma- 
tion times.  At  Toulouse,  on  a  misericord  of  1566,  Calvin  is 
represented  as  a  pig  preaching. 

Saracens  head. — This  reminiscence  of  the  Crusaders  per- 

357 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

sisted  long  after  the  last  of  these  was  concluded.  At  Rothwell, 
late  in  the  fifteenth  century,  we  find  the  turbaned  Paynim  with 
the  flowing  locks  and  curly  beards  which  are  usual  :  also  at 
Tilney  and  Bishops  Stortford  of  the  same  period.  At  Ling- 
field  nearly  all  the  eight  remaining  stalls  have  some  connexion 
with  the  Saracen.  One  is  of  the  foliated-face  type.  In  another 
the  ends  of  the  turban  flow  out  behind  the  stars  with  which  the 
stalks  of  the  volutes  end.  The  Wodehouse,  or  Wildman,  is 
also  frequently  met  with  ;  for  example,  in  the  mid-fourteenth 
century  stalls  of  Lincoln. 

The  zodiacal  signs,  or  emblems  of  the  month,  occur  at 
Brampton,  Huntingdon  (1400),  where  amongst  those  remain- 
ing, we  have  hay-cutting  and  corn-harvesting ;  at  Exeter,  with 
Sagittarius',  the  two  heads  in  a  hood  at  Worle,  a  man  emptying 
two  huge  jugs  for  rainy  January,  and  sitting  over  the  fire  for 
February,  and  emblems  of  the  rest  of  the  months  at  Ripple, 
and  innumerable  others  both  in  England  and  throughout  the 
Continent. 

Grotesques  and  human  headed  birds. — We  find  the  latter 
frequently  in  all  countries — in  England,  at  Exeter  and  at 
Lingfield,  for  example.  Their  classical  origin  can  scarcely  be 
doubtful ;  evolved  perhaps  from  a  suggestion  such  as  we  find 
in  a  Tanagra  figure,  where  a  naked  child  sitting  on  the  ground 
holds  a  goose  by  the  head  under  his  arm,  giving  the  effect  that 
the  child's  smiling:  head  is  that  of  the  o-oose.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  no  other  compound  of  human  and  animal  figures  is  more 
naturally  convincing  and  suggestive  than  the  human  head  on 
a  bird's  body.  Other  monstrous  anomalies  abound  every- 
where. 

Games  and  the  school  are,  of  course,  illustrated  by  many 
examples  of  chess  and  draughts,  by  blindman's  buff  ( Bristol), 
by  hot  cockles,  by  schoolboys  playing  at  ball  (Glo'ster),  and  so 
on  ;  and  condign  punishment  is  meted  out  to  unruly  boys  in 
many  ways,  amusingly  treated,  as  at  Sherborne  or  Rouen. 

Da7tcing  and  posturing. — At  All  Souls  College,  Oxford 
(1442),  where  the  work  is  unusually  good,  we  have  examples 
of  contortionists,  and  in  many  other  places  the  acrobat,  or  the 
elastic-faced  man  appears,  the  latter,  for  instance,  at  Ulm.  Or 
again,  there  is  "Our  Lady's  tumbler,"  the  poor  monk,  once  a 
posturer,  who,  having  no  other  talent,  was  found  displaying  his 
art,  as  the  best  thing  he  had,  before  her  image. 

358 


MISERICORDS 

Costume. — The  information  with  regard  to  costume  is  end- 
less and  full  of  interest.  As,  however,  in  other  cases,  such  as 
the  armour  on  sepulchral  effigies,  it  is  not  always  to  be  im- 
plicitly relied  on  as  evidence  for  dating.  We  find  the  horned 
headdress  at  Saint  Mary's  Minster  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  and 
at  Ludlow  ;  the  hair  in  nets  of  the  time  of  Richard  ii.,  and  at 
Beverley  the  scalloped  sleeves  of  the  men's  costume  of  the 
time  of  Jack  Cade's  insurrection.  The  stalls  at  Ely  were, 
according  to  some  authorities,  erected  by  Bishop  Alan  de 
Walsingham  in  1332,  but  in  the  misericord  with  the  story  of 
Herodias  we  have  a  style  of  ladies'  hairdressing  which  did  not 
come  in  till  early  fifteenth  century  :  no  doubt  a  later  addition. 
It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  also  that  fashions  were  frequently 
exaggerated  and  caricatured. 

Furniture  and  objects  of  dofuestic  interest. — These,  together 
with  scenes  in  the  life  of  the  middle  classes,  of  the  villagfer,  or 
of  the  monk,  are  no  less  fascinating  than  the  illustrations  of  the 
court,  the  chase,  the  tournament  and  military  affairs  which  also 
abound.  It  is  true  that  on  misericords  they  are  usually  single 
figures  and  on  a  small  scale.  There  is  not  the  space  for  such 
perspective  scenes  as  are  to  be  found  on  the  parcloses  and  joules 
of  Amiens,  which  constitute  a  complete  encyclopaedia  of  illustra- 
tion of  the  ordinary  bourgeois  life  at  the  end  of  the  mediaeval 
period  :  architecture,  within  and  without,  chairs,  tables,  benches, 
sideboards,  plate  and  crockery,  buffets,  wardrobes,  prie-Dieu, 
mirrors,  altarpieces,  kitchen  utensils,  costumes,  implements  of 
trade  and  occupations  of  all  kinds.  The  designers  and  carvers 
seem  to  have  done  for  us  what  the  bas-reliefs  of  ancient  Egypt 
and  the  custom  of  sealing  up  in  tombs  objects  of  daily  use 
have  done  to  assist  our  knowledge  of  far-off  days. 

There  is,  of  course,  any  amount  of  fun  and  humour  in  these 
carvings.  For  those  who  possessed  no  printed  and  illuminated 
books,  for  whom  even  a  Biblia  Pauperuni  was  a  rarity  to  be 
inspected  occasionally,  they  answered  several  purposes.  They 
were  the  Punchs  and  Charivaris  and  even  the  Pasquinades  of 
those  days,  and  the  satirical  lash  fell  heavily  at  times.  For 
pure  fun  we  have  such  things  as  the  devil  carrying  off  the  dis- 
honest alewife  (St.  David's,  1470) ;  the  three  men  in  a  boat — one 
of  them,  a  monk,  very  sick  ;  family  quarrels — a  woman  chastis- 
ing her  husband  with  a  ladle  ;  the  fight  for  the  breeches,  the 
symbol  of  domestic  authority,  as  in  the  story  of  Sire  Hain  and 

359 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Dame  Anieuse  at  Rouen ;  innumerable  instances  of  animals 
turning  the  tables  on  men  and  subduing  instead  of  being 
governed  by  them  ;  and  moral  lessons  conveyed  by  jest  and 
caricature  over  and  over  again.  The  manners  of  the  age  were 
coarser  than  they  are  now,  but  beyond  coarseness  (and  there  is 
not  very  much  even  of  that)  in  England,  at  any  rate,  there  is 
no  longer  any  existing  example  of  absolute  obscenity.  Our 
humour  in  that  way  goes  no  farther  than  a  suggestion,  as  at 
Malvern  or  Hereford  (1409),  where  a  man  appears  to  be 
making  rather  free  with  a  cook. 

Foliage  faces. — In  the  fifth  leaf  of  the  album  of  Wilars  de 
Honecourt  there  are  some  sketches  of  a  fantastic  application  of 
foliage  to  the  human  face,  which  was  much  in  favour  in  sculp- 
ture of  the  period,  and  afterwards  frequently  found  on  miseri- 
cords. K  foliage  kead'is  simply  a  human  head  in  full  face,  the 
hair,  eyebrows,  and  beard  transformed  into  leaves,  or,  some- 
times, flamelike  additions.  The  elementary  forms  of  foliage  are 
adapted  from  natural  types  into  a  curly,  hirsute  resemblance — in 
Wilar's  sketches  from  a  fig-leaf  [Plate  lii.].  The  fashion  has,  no 
doubt,  a  pagan  origin.  There  are  several  interesting  examples 
at  Lingfield,  Surrey.  On  one  the  beard  is  leaf-shaped,  and 
from  the  eyes  proceed  some  fanciful  additions,  tressed  like  an 
ear  of  corn.  And  again,  in  the  early  misericords  of  St, 
Mary's  Hospital  at  Chichester  we  have  flamelike  leaves  curv- 
ing upwards  from  beneath  the  eyes,  with  a  small  '  supporter ' 
on  each  side  in  the  form  of  a  sunflower  with  a  human  face  for 
the  centre.  This  conceit  continued  to  be  a  favourite  one  until 
late  Renaissance  times,  as  we  find,  for  instance,  in  the  woodwork 
of  about  1580  in  the  Benedictine  abbey  of  Ochsenhausen. 

If  we  consider  the  sources  from  which  so  much  of 
the  wood-carving  was  inspired,  and  the  crystallizing  in 
the  course  of  ages  of  the  popular  stories  of  all  times, 
we  shall  be  prepared  to  find  that  the  Folklore  is  also 
profusely  illustrated.  It  is  not  easy,  in  all  cases,  to 
trace  these  sources,  or  to  be  quite  certain  of  the  real 
meaning  of  some  which  still  seem  to  present  insoluble 
enigmas.  One  of  the  many  which  occur — too  numer- 
ous to  specify  more  particularly — may  serve  as  an 
example.  Among  the  very  fine  series  of  misericords  of 
360 


MISERICORDS 

the  stalls  of  Worcester  there  is  a  subject  which,  with 
variations,  is  found  frequently  also  in  all  countries. 
It  is  that  of  a  woman  riding  on  a  ram,  with  one  foot  on 
the  ground,  naked,  except  for  a  net  over  her  shoulders, 
a  rabbit  under  her  arm.  Until  recently,  this  has 
usually  been  understood  as  an  ancient  punishment  for 
incontinence,  a  woman  being  compelled  to  ride  thus 
through  the  streets.  But  the  real  story  is  drawn  from 
Folklore,  as  is  shown  by  Mr.  D.  S.  MacColl  in  a  paper 
in  the  Burlington  Magazine  for  October  1907.  It  is 
variously  applied  in  different  countries.  In  Scottish 
folklore  it  is  the  story  of  *  Diarmid  and  Graine ' — a 
riddle  contest,  the  wit  game  so  common  in  early  times 
(see  Popular  Tales  of  the  IVest  Highlands,  by  J.  F. 
Campbell,  vol.  i.  No.  60).  The  gist  of  the  riddle,  under 
its  many  variations,  is  that  the  woman  is  to  be  not 
clothed,  not  naked,  not  riding,  not  walking,  not  in  the 
road,  and  not  out  of  the  road.  So  she  strips,  wraps 
herself  in  a  fishing-net  and  ties  herself  to  a  donkey's 
tail,  which  drags  her  through  the  ruts  of  the  road  with 
one  foot  on  the  ground.  We  find  the  woman  and  the 
goat  in  a  sculpture  in  the  cathedral  of  Lyon.  But  here 
she  has  not  one  foot  on  the  ground,  the  goat  has  a 
human  face  and  she  is  whirling  a  dog  or  a  cat  with  one 
hand.  The  rabbit  has  still  to  be  explained.  At  Amiens 
the  '  Fine  Lady '  of  one  of  the  stalls  is  petting  a  rabbit 
in  her  arms.  This  has  been  thought  to  typify  the 
frivolity  and  frolicsomeness  of  women  of  her  class. 

For  beauty  of  design  the  volutes  of  misericords, 
peculiar  to  England,  have  more  character  than  the  prin- 
cipal subjects  themselves.  In  many  cases  the  execution  is 
masterly,  and  exhibits  an  understanding  of  the  qualities 
of  wood  as  distinguished  from  the  technique  of  stone 
sculpture,  and,  in  general,  it  is  finest  in  foliage  work. 
The  origin  of  thus  adding  ornamental  supporters  is 
still  open  to  conjecture.  In  the  earliest  misericords  it 
seems  to  have  begun  with  a  head,  or  a  simple  flower  or 

361 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

leaf  on  a  short  stalk,  as  we  find  at  Chichester  or  Exeter. 
It  was  only  natural  that  the  idea  should  be  extended, 
sometimes,  indeed,  in  an  extravagant  way.     It  is,  after 
all,  merely  a  decorative  addition  to  the  simple  console. 
Still  it  is  puzzling  that  the  practice  should  have  origin- 
ated and   have   been  adopted  only  in  England.     The 
form  of  the    rest   tablet  itself  varies   considerably  in 
length,   depth,  and  outline.      In   England   it  is  much 
wider  and  altogether  larger   than   on    the   Continent, 
where,  for  example,  at  Ulm,  Auch,  Saumur  or  Xanten, 
the  bracket  is  quite  small  and  compact,  with  often  only 
a  single  figure,  bust,  or  small  ornament.     Sometimes 
the  corbel  subject  is  (as  at  Winchester  Cathedral)  about 
the  same  size,  or  smaller,  than  those  in  the  volutes, 
and  as  the  latter  are  frequently  the  better  executed  of 
the  two,  we  may  suppose  that  they  represent  the  work 
of  more  than  one  artist.     In  some  cases  the  subjects 
are  independent  of  each  other,  but,  as  a  rule,  the  side 
ones  have  some  reference  to  the  central  and  principal 
one.    Shields  of  arms,  medallions,  cyphers,  monograms, 
and  rebuses  are  common.     More  rarely,  but  still  to  be 
met  with  (as  at  New  College,  Oxford),  there  are  whole- 
length  figures  at  the  terminations  of  the  volutes.     A 
commonly  found  bracket  to  the  patience  rest  is  a  man, 
grotesquely   figured    and    attired    in    a   girded    tunic. 
Sometimes,   as  at  St.    Mary's  Hospital,    or  at  Wells, 
he  is  head  downwards,  his  hands  spread  out,  his  back 
upholding  the  tablet,   his  legs  merged   into  the  leaf- 
scrolls  of  the  volutes.     Or,  for  a  foreign  example,  as  at 
Saumur,   where,    with    arms    and    legs    spread-eagle 
fashion,  and  head  thrown  back,  he  supports  the  miseri- 
cord  on  his  chin.      Or,  again,  at  Chichester,   it  is  a 
merman,  in  a  crouching  position,  holding  his  tail   in 
one  hand.      In  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  there 
is  a  corbel  or  bracket-like  carving  in  wood   from  the 
Maskell  collection,  no  doubt  at  one  time  a  misericord. 
It  is  of  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century ;    English 
362 


FRENCH    CHOIR    STALLS 

work  representing  the  Assumption,  the  Virgin  in  an 
aureole  or  vesica-shaped  border,  borne  up  by  angels, 
and  beneath,  a  kneeling  monk.  Said  to  have  come 
from  Malmesbury  Abbey,  it  is  crude,  untaught  work, 
an  example  of  monks'  amateur  efforts,  the  artist  having 
evidently  been  inspired  in  the  details  from  older  sources 
which  he  found  to  hand  :  for  example,  in  the  style  of 
the  trees,  which  go  back  to  early  Christian  methods. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  that,  if  a  misericord,  it  is 
painted.  Few  of  these  retain  even  traces  of  colour,  but 
this  will  be  found,  for  example,  on  the  very  interesting 
ones  at  Cockington  in  Devon.  For  some  reason  or 
another,  our  museum  at  Kensington  has  never  acquired 
a  specimen  of  a  misericord,  English  or  foreign.  Nor 
are  there  any  examples  of  the  carved  woodwork  of  the 
English  rood-screens,  although  in  mid-nineteenth  cen- 
tury and  later  still  they  might  have  been  had  for  the 
asking.  There  are  a  few  misericords  of  considerable 
interest  in  the  architectural  museum  at  Tufton  Street, 
but  these  have  long  been  left  kicking  about  on  the  floor 
of  the  gallery  and  exposed  to  great  neglect,  from  which 
it  is  high  time  they  were  rescued. 

There  remains  space  for  a  few  summary  remarks 
on  stalls  in  France,  which  present  points  of  special 
interest : — 

Poitiers,  c.  1239  to  1257.  There  are  seventy  stalls,  for  the 
most  part  foliag^e  work  of  fine  character  ;  many  fantastic  animals  ; 
a  carver  measuring  with  a  compass  ;  moralities  symbolized  as  at 
Amiens. 

N.  D.  de  la  Roche  (near  Chevreuse).  Perhaps  the  most 
ancient ;  very  plain  slender  columns  ;  charming  simplicity  of 
the  foliage  work. 

Saint-Andoche  de  Saulieu.  Last  years  of  thirteenth  cen- 
tury ;  epoch  of  transition  ;  but  continuing  to  be  a  model  of 
elegant  simplicity. 

N.  D.  de  Brou  (Ain).  A  fine  series  with  innumerable 
figures  of  patriarchs,  prophets,  apostles,  saints.  Strong  Flemish 
influence,  but  the  work  of  French  sculptors. 

363 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Pontigny  (Yonne).  Remarkable  for  variety  of  natural  his- 
tory illustration  :  flowers,  fruit,  vegetables,  insects. 

Anellan.     Fifteenth  century.     Elegant  simplicity. 

Chaise-Dieu  (Auvergne).  Early  fifteenth  century;  rich 
and  naturalistic  ;  grotesques  with  much  irreverence  ;  a  donkey 
playing  the  organ ;  astonishing  variety.  Attributed  to  the 
monks  of  Chaise-Dieu. 

Saint-Claude  (Jura,  1455).  Monstrous  animals,  scenes  and 
tableaux  ;  some  obscenities  ;  by  Jean  de  Vi^ry. 

Rouen  (1457-1469).  There  were  eighty-six  stalls:  now 
mostly  destroyed  ;  here,  probably,  was  the  beginning  of  the 
fashion  of  elaborate  scenes  and  grotesques  which  culminated  in 
many  great  series  of  choir  stalls  at  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  Paul  Mosselmen  was  working  at  Bourges  on 
the  monument  of  the  Due  de  Berri  when  called  to  Rouen  for 
this  work.  The  style  may  be  called  Flemish  Burgundian  (see 
Langlois,  F.  H.,  Stalks  de  la  cath.  de  Rouen,  1838). 

Lisieux.  Fourteenth  century.  Fifty-six  stalls.  Cf.  Wilars 
de  Honecourt. 

Auch  (1529).  Very  rich  and  fine  example  of  transition 
period. 

Others  to  be  noticed  are  Rodez,  Saint  Bertrand  de 
Comminges  (Renaiss.),  Champeaux,  Salins,  Orbais,  Solesmes. 
Toulouse.  Saint-Martin  au  Bois,  Chateaudun,  Venddme, 
Andelys.  Troo.  Saint- Benoit -sur -  Loire,  Reims,  Lyon, 
Alen^on,  Mantes,  Alby,  Mortain,  Toul. 

It  is  impossible  to  go  further  and  to  make  a  choice 
amongst  so  many  throughout  the  country. 

The  choirs  and  stall  work  of  Italy  are  so  intimately 
associated  with  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Renaissance 
that  the  consideration  of  them  must  remain  for  special 
treatment  in  that  connexion.  This  must  be  said,  of 
course,  without  prejudice  to  the  fact  that  certain  choir 
work — for  example,  that  of  Santa  Maria  Gloriosa  dei 
Frari  at  Venice,  by  Marco  da  Vicenza,  and  so  late  as 
1468 — may  be  entirely  Gothic.  We  have  to  avoid  also 
for  the  present  the  extensive  subject  of  tarsia  work  and 
its  mixture  with  the  fine  carved  stalls  by  the  sculptors 
of  northern  Italy,  as  we  find  it  at  Perugia  or  at  Siena. 
364 


SPANISH    CHOIR    STALLS 

Names  of  sculptors,  also,  would  be  found  more  fre- 
quently in  Italy  :  for  instance,  the  Da  l^asio  in  the  late 
fourteenth  century  at  Ferrara ;  the  Majano,  the  Barili 
and  many  others.  Italy  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  con- 
dense in  a  chapter.  In  a  general  way,  also,  the  influence 
exerted  by  a  centre  to  which  the  artists  of  every  other 
country  gravitated,  and  from  which  they  returned  home 
laden  with  ideas,  is  over  and  over  again  apparent. 

Spain,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  a  borrower  only 
and  never  a  teacher.  France,  Flanders,  Germany,  Italy 
were  all  laid  under  contribution.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  the  magnificent  silleria  of  her  cathedrals  and 
collegiate  churches  do  not  call  for  attention,  and  are 
not  worthy  of  our  admiration.  The  retables  of  Seville, 
of  Toledo,  of  Burgos,  of  Palencia,  of  Saragossa  have 
their  complements  in  the  stall  work  of  Vigarny,  of 
Berruguete,  Becerra,  Dancart,  Doncel,  of  Martin  and 
Nufrio  Sanchez,  of  Hernandez,  or  of  Juan  de  Juni ;  at 
Palencia,  Granada,  Toledo,  San  Marcos  of  Leon,  or 
Plasencia ;  in  that  of  the  Cartuja  of  Burgos,  of  the  Seo 
of  Saragossa  and  of  numbers  more  besides.  Of  many 
of  these,  indeed,  it  may  be  said  again,  in  the  picturesque 
language  of  Thdophile  Gautier,  which  in  this  case  we 
need  not  attempt  to  translate,  that  they  show  "  une 
verve  indpuisable,  une  abondance  inouie,  une  invention 
perpetuelle  dans  I'idde  et  dans  la  forme ;  un  monde 
nouveau,  une  crdation  ^  part,  ou  les  hommes  fleurissent, 
ou  le  rameau  se  termine  par  une  main  et  la  jambe  par 
un  feuillage,  ou  la  chim^re  ^  I'oeil  surnois  ouvre  ses  ailes 
ongleds,  ou  le  dauphin  monstrueux  souffle  I'eau  par  ses 
fosses.  C'est  un  enlacement  inextricable  de  fleurons, 
de  rin^eaux,  d'acanthes,  de  lotus,  de  fleurs  aux  calices 
ornds  d'aigrettes  et  de  vrilles,  de  feuillages  dentelds  et 
couronnds  d'oiseaux  fabuleux,  de  poissons  impossibles, 
de  sir^nes  et  de  dragons  extravagants,  dont  aucune 
langue  ne  peut  donner  I'idde.  C'est  le  genre  paien  de  la 
renaissance — ces  enfants  qui  jouent  avec  des  masques, 

365 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

femmes  qui  dansent,  gladiateurs  qui  luttent,  paysan  en 
vendange,  jeunes  filles  tourmentant  ou  caressant  un 
monstre  fantastique,  petits  mannekens-pisse." 

There  is  no  doubt  a  certain  amount  of  exaggeration 
and  invention  in  this  description.  Yet  it  is  strongly 
suggestive,  and  might  be  applied  not  only  to  work  of 
this  kind  in  Spain,  but  also  to  much  with  which  we 
have  just  been  occupied  in  France,  in  Germany  and 
elsewhere.  Was  the  intense  richness  and  variety  of 
this  kind  of  work  overdone  ?  It  is  not  altogether 
improbable  that  the  same  rich  superabundance  charac- 
terized our  English  choir  ornament  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  But  mainly,  perhaps,  as  the  result  of  the 
iconoclastic  destructions  which  accompanied  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  Reformation,  our  choirs  of  to-day  are 
reduced  to  the  correct  sobriety  of  the  pinnacled  and 
canopied  architecture,  with  the  misericords  hidden  away 
when  the  seats  are  turned  down,  some  grotesque 
rniiseaux,  here  and  there,  and  the  absence  of  any  but 
the  most  simple  jotides  or  parcloses.  There  is  no 
impression  now  of  a  riotous  imagination  in  sculp- 
tured detail,  no  realistic  or  fanciful  reconstruction  of 
the  animal  and  vegetable  worlds,  no  panoramas  of 
mediaeval  civil  and  domestic  life.  Yet  who  will  deny 
the  grandeur  of  the  simplicity  which  an  apparently 
ruthless  destruction  has  left  us  in  such  typical  examples 
as  we  may  find  at  Exeter,  at  Windsor,  at  Lincoln  or 
at  Chester? 

As  Mr.  E.  S.  Prior  has  pointed  out,  '  the  home  of 
the  wood-carver  lay  doubtless  in  the  woodland  centre 
of  England  where  a  carpenter's  craft  of  oak-building 
had  grown  to  maturity  on  the  borders  of  the  great 
forests  of  Sherwood,  Charnwood  and  Rockingham.' 
As  in  other  countries  this  carpenter's  craft  in  the 
first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century  was  still  but  a 
reflection  of  the  art  of  the  stone  cutter.  Nor  could  we 
afford  to  be  dependent   only  on    our   own    resources. 

366 


ENGLISH    CHOIRS 

The  foreigner  had  to  be  called  in,  and,  in  particular, 
numbers  of  Flemish  artists  came  over  and  settled 
amongst  us  in  the  reign  of  King  Edward  iii. 

The  arrangement  of  choir  stalls,  as  we  find  them 
to-day,  differs  from  that  adopted  on  the  Continent, 
the  lower  range  being  simply  benches  without  divisions 
into  stalls.  This  is  no  doubt  due  to  rearrange- 
ments in  post-Reformation  times  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  choir  boys,  and  to  the  provision  of  seats 
for  vicars-choral  in  receipt  of  stall  wages  when  their 
masters,  by  whom  they  were  engaged  as  understudies, 
occupied  their  stalls  themselves.  It  would  seem, 
also,  that  in  the  last  Gothic  times  of  the  fifteenth 
century  it  was  more  usual  to  support  the  canopies  by 
a  system  of  slender  columns  than  to  leave  them 
unsupported  as  abroad.  But  both  systems  existed  in 
Tudor  times :  for  example,  at  Chester,  where  the 
magnificently  complicated  work  of  light  and  airy 
pinnacled  tabernacles  has  canopies,  unsupported,  over 
each  stall.  On  the  other  hand,  Windsor,  Lincoln, 
Westminster,  Ripon,  and  many  others  are  of  the 
columnar  type.  The  famous  chapel  of  King's  College, 
Cambridge,  is  remarkable  as  an  example  of  Tudor 
Gothic  in  which  the  earlier  system  of  small  columns 
supporting  the  canopies  of  the  upper  ranges  of  stalls 
was  replaced  in  1530  by  baluster  supports  of  pure 
Renaissance  style,  all  exactly  similar,  and  the  canopy 
work  was  altered,  to  be  still  further  altered  in  the 
last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century.  And,  indeed, 
what  still  remains  of  the  native  Gothic  is  overpowered 
and  killed  by  the  parasitic  overgrowth  of  the  exotic 
elements.  The  alterations  in  all  our  great  cathedrals 
and  churches  have  been,  of  course,  considerable. 
When,  indeed,  we  examine  such  records  as  we  may 
find  in  the  illustrations  to  the  descriptive  works, 
of  which  so  many  were  published  early  in  the  last 
century,   and    compare  the  condition  of  these  edifices 

367 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

in  those  days  with  the  present  time,  it  is  difficult  to 
connect  them  as  they  are  now  with  their  mediaeval 
completeness.  Harrod,  in  his  notice  of  the  stalls 
of  Norwich,  says  that  he  can  just  remember  them 
painted  in  the  style  of  the  seventeenth  centnry. 

Exeter.  Fifty  of  the  stalls  have  misericords.  These  are 
generally  accepted  as  of  the  thirteenth  century,  dating  from 
1255  to  1279.  The  character  of  some  is  certainly  derived 
from  much  earlier  stone  sculpture.  These  are  the  open-worked 
ones  of  interlaced  foliage  and  grotesques  of  a  similar  character 
to  the  earliest  at  Christchurch,  Hants.  There  is  indeed  more 
than  a  reminiscence  of  the  art  which  we  find  on  many  eleventh- 
century  Norman  stone  fonts  and  capitals.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  these  early  examples  have  no  volutes,  and  that  the 
"patience"  itself  is  of  a  different  form,  as  seen  in  plan. 
Among  the  subjects  at  Exeter  is  the  famous  "  elephant,"  the 
oldest  example  in  England,  with  his  hocks,  however,  bent 
the  wrong  way,  or  rather  it  should  be  said  that  an  elephant, 
properly  speaking,  has  none.  The  volute  ends  are  mostly 
foliage  of  simple  character,  and  are  highly  interesting  as  early 
examples  of  an  adjunct  afterwards  developed  and  carried  to 
extravagant  lengths.  The  "  restorations "  by  Sir  Gilbert 
Scott  were,  as  is  well  known,  equivalent  to  reconstructions, 
but  the  fine  canopy  work  of  the  bishop's  throne  remains. 

Christchurch,  Hants.  Here  there  are  three  misericords, 
probably  contemporary  with  the  earliest  of  Exeter,  amongst 
others  of  the  sixteenth  century.  One  is  of  the  simplest  kind, 
the  "  patience "  merely  supported  by  three  brackets  in  the 
form  of  curled  foliage  of  excellent  character  and  execution. 
The  later  transitional  and  Renaissance  work  is  of  a  poor, 
imitative  character,  probably  by  English  artists,  and  differing 
in  this  respect  from  that  at  King's  College,  where  the  hand 
of  some  great  Italian  master,  or  perhaps   H~^^'^'"    's  evident. 

Hemingborough  (Yorkshire)  possesses  also  a  misericord 
of  thirteenth-century  character,  somewhat  in  the  style  of  the 
early  Christchurch  ones. 

Sutton  Courtenay,  Berks.  Three,  of  thirteenth  century, 
remaining.  Very  simple.  Corbel,  or  bracket  form.  Ball- 
flower  ornament :  perhaps  the  only  example  of  this  in  wood. 

368 


PLArF.    uit 


^»- 


MlSKklCOKDS.     EN(;i.l.SH    AND    KRKNCH 

KaI'-TKR.         2.    CHKISTCHURCII,    HANTS.         3.    COCKINCTON,    DKVON.         4.    CHESTER.         5.    ST.    MARV's    IIOSIMTAl  ,    CIIIIIIKS  1  K  R.         6.    SAUMTR. 
7.    WmCKSTKK.         8.    ST.    M\KV'S    H  ISlMTAt.,    CHICIIKSTRK.         q.    VICTOKtA    ANIJ    AI.BRKT    MIKRUM   (MA.SKBI.L  COM-KCTlnNl^    - 

to.    I.VNN    ST.    NICHOLAS 


ENGLISH    MISERICORDS 

Chichester.  Same  general  character  as  Exeter.  Destruc- 
tion and  defacement  in  Puritan  times. 

Fordham  (Cambs.).  Thirteenth  or  early  fourteenth  century. 
Mask  centres  ;  foHage  supports. 

Winchester  Cathedral.  Most  beautiful  thirteenth-century 
foliage  and  fruit  work  in  the  spandrels  and  arches  of  the 
dossals  of  the  stalls ;  a  true  conception  of  the  power  of 
expression  in  wood,  and  rightly  used.  Neither  France  nor 
Germany  could  show  anything  finer  of  the  kind. 

Worcester  (the  earliest,  1397).  One  of  the  finest  sets  in 
England.  Largely  natural  history,  bestiaries,  travellers'  tales. 
Figure  work  less  good  than  the  decorative,  but  wonderful  natural 
aptitude  of  evidently  untrained  artist,  following  good  models. 
(See  Aldis,  Caiuings  and  Sculptures  of  Worcester'  Cathedral^ 
the  whole  series  reproduced  in  excellent  photographs.) 

Lincoln  (1370).  Very  varied.  Figure  work  by  an  artist; 
for  example,  the  knight  thrown  from  his  horse  ;  full  of  spirit 
and  movement,  and  good  in  execution.  Glorious  pinnacled 
canopy  work ;  panels  with  bas-reliefs  of  kings,  and  angels 
playing  musical  instruments. 

Winchester  Coll.  Chapel  (1390).  The  subjects  are 
amongst  the  most  varied  we  have.  A  curious  one  is  a  man, 
haunted  by  goblins,  seated  on  a  cusp  of  the  volutes. 

Wells  (1330).  An  extremely  fine  series  of  the  highest 
interest,  intimately  connected  with  the  expansion  of  Gothic 
sculpture  in  England.  Comparatively  early,  these  misericords 
are  not  to  be  surpassed  elsewhere  in  England.  They  are 
peculiarly  English  in  character,  and  very  many  of  them, 
especially  with  regard  to  the  bosses  of  the  volutes,  are 
specimens  of  wood-carving  which  would  hold  its  own  with 
any  of  the  same  kind  elsewhere.  Nor  are  several  of  the 
central  subjects  of  birds  and  be  ists,  natural  or  monstrous, 
of  which  there  are  forty-two,  less  remarkable  for  refinement 
of  character  and  perfection  of  execution.  Note  also  amongst 
the  human  figure  work  the  charming  head  of  a  lady  with 
her  hair  in  a  caul  on  each  side,  covered  with  a  veil  confined 
by  a  fillet.  The  whole  of  the  leaf-work  may  no  doubt  be 
found  elsewhere  in  stone,  but  this  does  not  lessen  the 
value  of  its  arrangement  and  treatment  in  another  material. 
We  find  here,  besides  other  frequently  used  plant-forms,  the 
maple,  vine,  marsh  mallow,  ivy,  wild   rose   and   beech,   which 

2  A  369 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  West  Country  carvers  loved  so  much  to  use,  as  the 
Somerset  and  Devon  screens  and  bench-ends  also  abun- 
dantly testify. 

Beverley  Minster  (1520).  The  misericord  with  the  Fox 
preaching  has  inscribed  in  the  volutes  "  Johannis  Syerke 
Clericus  Fabrici." 

The  carving  on  the  bench-ends  which  still  exist  to 
the  number  of  many  thousands  throughout  the  country 
and  are  especially  characteristic  in  Devon,  Somerset 
and  Cornwall,  has  frequently  much  analogy  in  subject 
and  technical  treatment  with  that  on  the  misericords. 
The  space  at  our  disposal  having  already  been  very 
fully  occupied  with  other  important  divisions  of  our 
subject,  I  propose  now  to  refer  very  briefly  to  these 
interesting  examples  of  English  work.  To  do  more 
than  this  would  require  numerous  illustrations.  The 
whole  subject  will  be  fully  treated  and  illustrated  in 
another  book  which  I  have  now  in  preparation. 

The  general  impression  which  one  gathers  from  the 
bench-ends,  of  which  we  find  examples  in  nearly  every 
village  church  throughout  Devon  and  Cornwall,  is,  in 
the  first  place,  of  their  massive  character  and  deeply  cut 
carving.  They  are  seldom  less  than  three  or  four  inches 
thick,  of  solid  oak.  For  their  subjects,  we  may  take 
those  of  such  churches  as  Kilkhampton,  Launcells, 
Poughill  or  Abbotsham,  as  typical  of  many  others  still 
existing,  and  of  thousands  which  have  been  destroyed 
or  turned  to  other  uses.  In  very  many  cases  we  find 
the  emblems  of  the  Passion — the  nails,  ladder,  crown 
of  thorns,  pierced  hands,  spear,  garments  and  dice — to 
be  the  favourite  theme,  and  these,  with  other  pious 
devices,  testify  to  the  spirit  of  simple  devotion  which 
still  lingered  in  the  West  of  England  up  to  the  very 
eve  of  the  Reformation,  against  which,  to  the  very  last, 
protests  were  stronger  here  than  elsewhere.  In  other 
parts  of  England,  additional  interest  is  to  be  found  in 
the  stories  on  the  panels,  and  in  the  elaborate  nature  of 

370 


BENCH-ENDS 

the  poppy-heads  in  which  busts  and  other  figure  work 
in  the  round  are  frequently  mingled. 

The  somewhat  neglected  church  of  Launcells,  almost 
hidden  in  a  depression  in  the  hills  which  surround  the 
little  town  of  Stratton,  on  the  borders  of  Devon  and 
Cornwall,  possesses  what  even  in  their  present  con- 
dition is,  perhaps,  the  finest  and  most  interesting  set  of 
bench-ends  of  the  West  Country  style.  Unfortunately 
they  have  never,  I  believe,  been  photographed  as  a 
whole.  The  designs  are  excellent,  the  carving  bold  and 
deeply  cut  in  the  massive  blocks  of  timber.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that,  as  in  other  cases,  the  work  is  due 
to  local  talent,  but  we  have  no  means  of  determining 
the  position,  lay  or  monastic,  the  artist  may  have  held 
in  the  community.  We  find  here  the  frequent  short- 
hand notes,  as  it  were,  usual  in  small  carved  work  of 
the  period,  calling  our  attention  to  the  Passion  of  our 
Lord  :  a  plain  cross  with  a  crown  of  thorns  hanging  on 
it,  the  sponge,  rows  of  money,  the  pincers  and  cord, 
spices  in  vases,  the  nails,  a  sword  and  a  human  ear  cut 
off,  the  winding-sheet,  the  Veronica  handkerchief,  and 
so  on.  Further  than  these,  there  are  the  feet  of  the 
Saviour  disappearing  in  a  cloud  at  the  Ascension,  and 
the  footmarks  left  on  the  ground  below  ;  the  tomb  as 
an  early  Christian  basilica  with  a  tree  and  spade  near 
it ;  hell-mouth  as  the  wide-open  mouth  of  a  monstrous 
animal  ;  the  large  Gothic  M  crowned,  monogram  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  ;  the  fleur-de-lis  ;  an  Annunciation  lily 
in  a  vase  ;  the  emblem  of  the  Sacred  Heart  and  a  hand 
pointing  to  it ;  and  others.  Of  a  later  date  in  the  same 
set  are  some  helmeted  and  profile  heads  in  Renaissance 
style,  shields  with  initials  or  coats  of  arms,  such  as  that 
of  Sir  Bevil  Grenville,  the  Tudor  rose,  and  panels  of 
the  linen  pattern.  At  Abbotsham  the  bench-ends  are 
narrower  and  of  less  thickness  than  usual.  As  in  the 
case  of  other  churches  they  have  their  own  individual 
interest.     We  have,  again,  the  Passion  emblems,   the 

371 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Veronica  face  on  the  napkin,  the  Sacred  Feet,  Hands 
and  Heart,  the  lantern,  and  the  crucifixion  itself  with 
the  rood  figures  on  either  side.  The  builder  is  repre- 
sented by  his  compass  and  square,  and  the  Founder  in 
a  full-length  mitred  figure,  holding  in  one  hand  a  model 
of  the  church.  On  another  panel  is  his  shield  of  arms 
surmounted  by  a  mitre. 

As  the  subject  of  bench  -  ends  is  but  summarily 
treated  here  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  give 
illustrations.  But  on  account  of  their  interesting  rela- 
tion to  mediaeval  figure-sculpture  generally,  the  panels 
on  the  backs  of  some  benches  in  the  choir  of  the 
parish  church  of  North  Cray,  Kent,  are  here  repro- 
duced. They  are  carved  in  low  relief  and  represent  the 
seven  corporal  works  of  mercy  :  the  feeding  of  the 
hungry,  giving  drink  to  the  thirsty,  clothing  the  naked, 
harbouring  the  harbourless,  visiting  the  sick  and  in 
prison,  and  burying  the  dead.  The  carving  is  most 
excellent  and  spirited,  and,  though  on  a  larger  scale,  one 
is  reminded,  at  the  first  glance,  of  the  style  and  tech- 
nique of  the  mirror  cases,  caskets  and  panels  in  ivory 
of  the  same  period.  The  panels  are  said  to  have  been 
acquired  in  Belgium  a  few  years  ago. 

Note. — Through  an  unfortunate  accident  occurring  when  this  book  was 
ready  for  press  it  has  not  been  found  possible  to  include  an  illustration  of  the 
Annunciation  group  at  Asciano,  described  p.  254.  Advantage  has  been  taken 
to  introduce  instead  the  accompanying  English  figure  of  St.  Catherine,  now  in 
the  collection  of  Dunstan  Powell,  Esq.,  of  Birmingham  (Plate  lv.).  Although 
it  may  be  considered  by  some  critics  somewhat  bold  to  ascribe  an  English 
origin  to  this  piece,  the  author  has  no  hesitation  in  so  doing.  He  is  of  opinion 
that  there  are  not  a  few  works  of  art,  especially  among  the  ivories,  generally 
ascribed  to  France  or  the  Netherlands,  which  should  be  restored  to  England. 
At  the  same  time,  it  is  a  question  for  which  space  could  not  at  present  be  found 
in  this  book.  There  are  many  examples,  throughout  the  country,  of  carved 
woodwork,  such  as — to  name  but  one  only — the  fine  roof  of  the  church  of 
Mildenhall  in  Suffolk,  with  which  comparisons  would  have  to  be  made ;  and, 
indeed,  the  character  of  the  more  or  less  perfect  figures  in  stone  and  alabaster, 
and  of  English  mediaeval  sculpture,  generally,  would  call  for  attention  at 
considerable  length. 


f'LATJi   LIV^ 


STATUKTTK.     <\.    (  .\THKKI\h.     INK    KM  I'.KKC  )K    MAXKN  TILS    rXlPKK    1 1 1  I<    1  KKT. 
KNOIJSH.     KOrKIKI-.NIH    CKXTURV 

r,     rHE   COLl-ECTIilN    ii|'    |>UNMAN    I'oWKI.L.    EM.>. 
FAliK     iJ-J 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

CHANCEL   SCREENS   AND   OTHER    CARVED  WOODWORK 
IN  PARISH  CHURCHES  IN  THE  WEST  OF  ENGLAND 


A 


LLUSION  has  already  been  made  more  than  once 
to  the  paucity  of  remains  of  mediaeval  wood 
sculpture  in  England,  due  to  the  wholesale 
destructions  at  the  Reformation  and  in  Puritan  times. 
But  if,  in  figure  work,  little  indeed  has  been  spared  for 
us  besides  the  misericords  and  the  somewhat  cognate 
bench-ends,  together  with  some  scattered  remnants  here 
and  there,  and  a  number  of  angels  on  hammer-beams 
of  roofs,  we  have  in  what  remains  of  the  carved  wood 
rood-screens  examples  of  native  art  workmanship  of 
which  we  have  every  reason  to  be  proud.  For  many 
years  neglected  and  unappreciated,  and  entirely  ignored 
by  foreign  critics,  they  have  recently  attracted,  in  our 
own  country  at  least,  not  a  little  attention  and  admira- 
tion. 

When  we  consider  that  at  one  time  the  rood-screen 
and  the  choir-screen  or  pidpititm,  were  to  be  found,  in 
conformity  with  canon  law,  in  every  cathedral,  collegiate 
and  monastic  church  throughout  the  country,  that  no 
parish  church  was  without  its  rood-screen  at  least,  and 
that  this  was  usually  of  wood  more  or  less  richly 
carved  and  decorated,  it  will  be  admitted  that  the 
subject  is  too  large  a  one  to  be  treated  in  detail  within 
the  limits  of  the  present  volume.  Besides  this,  the 
usual  character  of  the  ornamentation — in  the  main 
architectural,  enriched  with  foliage  work — is  only 
partially  included  in  the  scheme  or  plan  which  we 
have  attempted  to  follow.     These  beautiful  specimens 

373 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

of  the  wood-carver's  craft,  together  with  bench-ends, 
chests  and  panellings  generally,  must  therefore  await 
another  opportunity  when — if  it  should  be  called  for 
— the  character  of  the  ornament  and  its  technical 
treatment  may  be  given  the  special  attention  they 
deserve. 

The  question  of  the  early  history  of  the  rood-loft 
may  be  dismissed  in  a  few  words,  the  more  so  because 
the  screen,  as  we  find  it  now,  is  but  a  fragment  of  its 
former  self.  It  is  chiefly  interesting  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  often  elaborate  carving  of  its  foliage 
work,  the  elegant  series  of  fenestrations,  the  real  merit 
of  the  refined  and  delicate  craftsmanship,  and,  above 
all,  from  the  fact  that  it  is  essentially  English  in 
arrangement  and  treatment,  however  much  the  motives 
may  have  been  borrowed  from  foreign  sources.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  Church,  before  the  choir  system  was 
fully  developed,  it  was  to  the  altar  alone  that  a  screen- 
ing off  was  applied,  and  this,  to  speak  generally,  was 
done  by  an  arrangement  of  curtains  during  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  sacred  mysteries.  In  the  basilica  the  screen 
assumed  the  form  of  a  low  wall — still  surviving  in  our 
altar  rails — and  on  either  side  were  raised  the  ambons 
or  pulpits,  for  the  reading  of  the  epistles  and  gospels. 
As  time  went  on  the  seats  of  the  bishops  and  other 
ministers  were  no  longer  behind  the  altar,  the  choir 
occupied  a  larger  space  in  front  of  it,  and  a  higher 
screen  divided  this  sanctuary  from  the  main  body  of 
the  edifice.  A  loft,  or  gallery,  to  which  access  was 
gained  by  a  staircase  in  the  wall,  was  supported  by 
this  screen,  and  took  the  place  of  the  ambons,  serving 
also  as  a  passage  across  the  building.  This  gallery 
supported  the  organs,  gave  accommodation  to  the 
choir,  and  was  at  times  even  furnished  with  an  altar 
at  which  mass  was  said. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  do  more  than  allude  to  other 
uses  to  which  it  was  put.     Some  of  them    still    form 
374 


ROOD-LOFTS 

matter  for  discussion  and  dispute.  It  will  be  sufficient 
to  bear  in  mind  that  in  the  greater  churches  there  were 
two  screens,  the  pulpittim  and  the  rood-screen.  It 
may  be  said  that  the  chief  object  of  the  latter,  besides 
displaying  the  Holy  Rood  and  its  attendant  figures, 
was  its  use  for  what  we  now  call  the  organ-loft, 
that  is,  as  a  place  for  the  organs  and  as  a  singing 
gallery.  From  the  jitbd,  or  pitlpitu7n,  were  sung  the 
epistles  and  gospels  and  other  offices,  which,  as  at 
present — at  compline,  for  example — were  prefaced  by 
the  reader's  request,  '' Jube  domne  beriedicerer  In 
churches  where  there  were  two  screens  the  rood-screen 
stood  at  some  little  distance  west  of  the  pulpittim,  and 
carried,  or  had  suspended  over  it,  the  great  crucifix  or 
rood,  with  its  attendant  figures  of  Our  Lady  and  St. 
John,  while  below  it  stood  the  rood-altar,  where  the 
parish  mass  was  daily  said.  In  some  cases  mass  was 
celebrated  in  the  loft  itself,  and  we  still  find  traces 
of  the  rood-lights  kept  burning  there.  In  parish 
churches  the  two  screens  were  combined,  and  this 
combination  may  properly  be  termed  the  rood-screen. 

It  is  uncertain  when  the  practice  began  of  placing 
a  rood,  or  Calvary,  on  the  loft  of  the  chancel-screen. 
There  is  probably  no  existing  complete  rood  with 
its  three  figures  earlier  than  the  thirteenth  century. 
Two  examples  of  this  date  are  in  the  museum  at 
Dresden.  In  those  cases  where  a  still  earlier  origin 
has  been  assigned,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  they  are 
merely  copies  made  as  late  as  the  fourteenth  or  even 
the  fifteenth  century.  They  are,  however,  still  interest- 
ing, for  the  older  style  was  faithfully  imitated.  An 
early  mention  of  a  rood-beam  occurs  in  a  MS.  of 
the  monk  Gervasius,  who,  in  describing  the  work  of 
Lanfranc  in  Canterbury  Cathedral  before  the  fire  in 
1 174,  says  that  above  iht  pttlpittmi,  and  placed  across 
the  choir,  was  a  beam  [trabes  evaf)  which  sustained  a 
great  cross,  two  cherubim,  and  the  images  of  St.  Mary 

375 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

and  St.  John  the  Apostle  (Willis,  Canter.  Cath.,  p.  37). 
At  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries  many  rich  rood- 
lofts  were  removed  to  the  neighbouring  parish  churches. 
The  fine  rood-screen  and  loft  at  Atherington,  in  Devon, 
is  probably  an  instance,  and  no  doubt  numbers  were 
destroyed,  for  few  remain  of  an  earlier  date  than  the 
fifteenth  century. 

The  general  subject  of  crucifix  figures  is  one  that 
demands  special  treatment  in  the  story  of  wood  sculp- 
ture and,  so  far  as  considerations  of  space  allow,  has 
been  already  alluded  to  in  other  parts  of  this  book. 
The  iconoclasm  of  Reformation  times,  the  hatred  of  the 
Puritans,  and  the  irreverence  towards,  and  curious  dis- 
like of,  a  representation  of  our  Lord  on  the  cross — 
especially  if  sculptured  —  which  was  still  rampant  in 
early  Victorian  days,  have  reduced  the  number  of  Eng- 
lish rood-figures  probably  to  no  more  than  two  or  three 
fragments.  That  is,  if  we  leave  out  of  account  the  cruci- 
fix and  attendant  figures  rudely  carved  in  low  relief  on 
a  panel  now  placed  over  the  communion  table  in  the 
little  church  of  Gwerful  Goch,  near  Corwen,  in  North 
Wales,  which  is  sometimes  referred  to  as  a  rood. 
About  the  year  1876  the  visit  of  the  local  antiquarian 
society  brought  to  light  a  fragment  of  a  crucifix  figure 
standing  in  a  corner  of  the  vestry  of  St.  Antony's 
Chapel  at  Cartmel  Pel,  Lancashire — *  like  an  old  um- 
brella,' as  the  Transactions  relate — which  for  some  time 
had  been  used  as  a  poker  for  the  vestry  fire.  So  far 
as  can  be  judged  from  its  present  condition,  as  illus- 
trated by  a  photograph,  the  figure  was  a  large  and 
extremely  fine  one,  evidently  English  work,  about  2 
feet  6  inches  long,  of  oak  prepared  with  a  ground,  as 
described  in  a  previous  chapter,  and  coloured  and 
gilded.  The  arms  are  missing,  and  the  wound,  from 
which  stream  gouts  of  blood,  is  seen  on  the  right  side. 
It  is  now  preserved  in  the  local  museum.  In  1886  the 
remains  of  a  rood  figure  of  the  fourteenth  century,  found 
376 


ROODS 

about  1856  in  the  blocked-up  staircase  of  the  church  of 
Kemeys  Inferior,  were  exhibited  at  the  Society  of  Anti- 
quaries. From  the  account  in  the  Proceedings  we 
gather  that  the  legs  from  the  knees  are  now  missing, 
the  long  hair  bound  with  a  fillet,  the  face  thin  with 
curly  beard  and  moustache,  and  that  there  are  remains 
of  colour.  Besides  the  fragments  which  have  just  been 
described,  there  are  also  two  remains  of  rood  figures 
from  Mochdre  Church,  Monmouthshire,  now  in  the 
Powysland  Museum.  They  had  been  hidden,  or  stowed 
away  at  one  time  or  another,  on  the  top  of  the  wallplate, 
where  they  were  found  at  the  time  the  church  was  re- 
stored in  1867.  The  figure  of  our  Lord  measures,  in 
its  present  condition,  19  inches  in  length,  but  the  arms 
and  feet  are  gone.  There  is  a  crown  of  thorns  over 
the  full-flowing  hair,  and  the  brow  is  deeply  furrowed. 
The  work  is  rude,  but  of  course  was  at  one  time  painted. 
The  attendant  figure  of  the  Virgin  is  15^  inches  in 
length,  the  face  of  elongated  type,  and  a  long  veil 
covers  the  robe.  Native  work  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
it  seems  to  have  been  copied  roughly  from  some  Flemish 
model.  It  is  remarkably  like  the  type  of  some  of  the 
English  alabaster  figures  :  short,  with  a  certain  stiff- 
ness, large  head,  long  hands,  prominent  eyes  and  cheeks. 
There  is  such  a  one  in  the  museum  at  Ghent ;  a  Saint 
Catherine  of  alabaster  painted.  It  may  be  compared 
also  with  a  Madonna  figure  on  the  west  front  of  Slea- 
ford  Church.  These  figures  would,  of  course,  be  rather 
small  for  a  rood.  The  dimensions  of  some  great  roods 
must  have  been  very  imposing.  At  Cullompton  there 
are  still  to  be  seen  the  remains  of  the  Golgotha,  or  rock- 
work,  from  which  the  Crucifixion  group  sprung.  It  is 
constructed  from  the  butts  of  two  oaks  measuring  9  feet 
6  inches  by  i  foot  6  inches,  carved  to  represent  rocks,  on 
which  lie  skulls  and  cross-bones,  with  mortices  for  the 
figures  of  Mary  and  John.  In  England  it  is  unique. 
At  Causton  Church,  Norfolk,  are  four  medallions  fixed  to 

377 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  roof,  which  seem  to  have  been  the  end  of  a  rood-cross, 
and,  standing  on  the  first  hammer-beam  on  the  north  side 
is  a  large  image  of  Our  Lady,  probably  one  of  the  usual 
accompanying  figures.  A  few  other  attendant  figures 
are,  or  were  not  long  ago,  in  existence  :  for  example, 
Our  Lady  at  Etchingham,  Sussex,  and  a  St.  John  at 
Lapford,  Devon.  The  latter  was  found  hidden  in  the 
north  wall  of  the  church  in  1889.  It  has  a  typical  long 
narrow  face,  and  well-treated  drapery  in  long  folds  con- 
fined by  a  belt.  Some  few  examples  of  representations 
of  the  Crucifixion  with  the  attendant  rood  figures  re- 
main, also  on  bench-ends  ;  for  example,  at  Littleham, 
North  Devon. 

The  subject  of  the  erections  and  destructions  of  the 
roods  which,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  must 
have  existed  on  rood-screens  alone  to  the  number  of 
many  thousands,  is  sufficiently  interesting  to  justify  a 
slight  digression.  A  systematic  account  compiled  from 
the  many  quaint  entries  in  the  churchwardens'  accounts 
of  the  centuries  concerned  would  assist  in  making  us 
acquainted  with  important  details  regarding  the  con- 
tracts for  the  making  of  the  screens  and  their  images, 
the  methods  of  raising  funds,  the  employment  of  master 
carpenters  and  imagers  and,  in  a  few  cases,  even  the 
names  of  the  sculptors.  We  find  also  details  of  the 
painting  and  gilding  and  their  cost,  records  of  the  first 
ruthless  wave  of  iconoclastic  destruction,  the  short-lived 
replacements  followed  by  a  second  "  plucking  down  " 
and  reduction  to  decent  order,  and,  finally,  material  for 
amazement  at  the  taste  which  so  lately  as  last  century 
condemned  the  much  despoiled,  but  still  beautiful, 
screen-work  to  the  stable-loft  of  the  vicarage  or  a  bon- 
fire. They  were  not  suited  to  the  aesthetic  ideas  of  the 
Victorian  age,  and  when  not  utterly  destroyed  might 
have  been  had  for  the  asking.  Happily,  there  has  been 
a  revulsion  of  feeling,  and  in  the  West  Country  especi- 
ally, the  work  of  restoration  has,  in  recent  years,  been 

378 


PARISH   AND   PARISH   ACCOUNTS 

undertaken  almost  everywhere,  and,  in  most  cases,  this 
has  been  well  done. 

Materials  abound  in  such  churchwardens'  accounts 
as  we  still  possess,  with  regard  to  pre-Reformation  vil- 
lage life,  and  unfortunately,  more  as  to  the  work  of 
destruction  so  gaily  carried  on  by  the  orders  of  the 
reforming  sovereigns.  A  parish  meant  the  community 
living  within  limits  defined  by  the  Church,  with  its 
organizations  instituted  by,  and  under,  ecclesiastical 
authority.  The  Church  was  its  meeting-place,  and  it 
was  the  bounden  duty  of  the  church  council  to  furnish 
the  House  of  God.  The  name  '  Vestry '  nowhere 
occurs.  In  every  will  the  testator  bequeathed  some- 
thing for  a  purpose  connected  with  the  fabric.  Over 
and  over  again  the  keeping  up  of  the  '  rode-loft '  and  its 
decoration  is  a  favourite  object  of  devotion.  Not  only 
was  money  lavished  on  great  cathedrals,  but  the  smallest 
and  most  remote  of  the  village  churches,  seemingly  of 
little  importance,  was  often  most  richly  endowed  and 
furnished.  How  else  can  we  account  for  the  evidence 
of  former  magnificence  in  out-of-the-way  Devonshire 
villages,  even  to-day  difficult  of  access,  nestling  among 
the  combes  and  valleys,  or  scattered  about  the  desolate 
wastes  of  Dartmoor? 

We  read  in  the  accounts  for  1530  of  the  small 
parish  of  Morebath  of  the  monies  devoted  to  various 
altars,  of  the  guilds  of  young  m.en  and  maidens,  and 
how  the  funds  for  pious  purposes  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  people  and  administered  by  them.  It  is  always 
the  same  picture  of  church  life,  whether  in  town  or 
village.  As  examples  which  may  illustrate  the  whole, 
none  is  more  instructive  than  the  Tintinhull  Records, 
collected  in  1883  by  Bishop  Hobhouse,  and  published 
by  the  Somersetshire  Record  Society.  Over  and  over 
again  in  these  and  in  other  churchwardens'  accounts 
we  come  across  such  information  as  the  following, 
which   is   here  briefly  summarized.     The   accounts   of 

379 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Tintinhull  give  a  surprising  picture  of  village  life. 
The  church  fabric  and  services  were  not  maintained 
by  the  neighbouring  priory,  but  by  the  people,  the 
*  parish '  being  a  purely  religious  organization,  dis- 
tinct from  the  manor  or  the  tything,  though  composed 
of  the  same  personnel,  man  for  man.  The  bishop  at 
his  visitation  orders  things  to  be  done,  such  as  the 
repair  of  the  roof,  and  the  parish  has  to  do  it.  The 
great  rood-screen  at  Yatton  was  all  executed  by  Crosse, 
a  carver,  in  Cleeve  within  the  parish,  the  oak  being 
bought  by  the  wardens  in  standing  trees,  which  they 
selected,  felled,  and  seasoned  for  this  work  and  for  the 
fine  bench-ends  at  Tintinhull.  There  are  interesting 
details  of  the  payments  to  Crosse,  large  sums  for  the 
rood-loft  and  solario,  for  '  divers  colours  to  the  aler, 
for  trussing  of  the  hyde  and  the  crosse  with  the  Maries, 
for  painting  oyle  for  the  crosse,  for  gold  to  peynt  the 
angel,  for  vernaysche,  glew  and  divers  colers  for  the 
loffte,  for  the  chandeler  in  the  roodlofte,  for  the  images 
to  the  rodelofte  yn  number  Ixix,  for  ernest  peny  to 
the  ymage  maker,  for  ale  given  to  Crosse  yn  certeyn 
timis  yn  his  worke  to  make  hym  wel  welled,  to  the 
peynter  to  peynt  oure  Lady,  to  peynt  the  Crystofer, 
for  amendyng  of  the  vyne  in  the  rodeloft,  for  gylting 
of  Saynt  James  and  oure  Lady,'  and  so  on,  and  so  on, 
items  of  the  most  suggestive  interest.  And  amongst 
other  records  of  a  similar  kind  there  are  few  more 
instructive  than  those  of  the  parish  of  Stratton,  on 
the  borders  of  Devon  and  Cornwall.  These  were  at 
one  time  in  the  possession  of  the  father  of  the  present 
writer,  obtained  by  him  when  it  was  easy  to  acquire 
such  things.  They  have  been  partly  published  by  the 
Society  of  Antiquaries,  and  are  now  safely  housed 
in  the  British  Museum. 

As  it  would  be  impossible  within  a  limited  space 
even  to  summarize  the  character  of  the  decoration  of 
the  carved  wood-screens  throughout  the  country,  our 
380 


CHANCEL- SCREENS 

attention  may  be  confined  to  the  West  of  England, 
and  principally  to  Devonshire.  We  may  omit,  also, 
the  construction  of  the  screens  themselves  and  their 
purely  architectural  features.  In  general  the  type  is 
characterized  by  the  beauty  of  the  foliage  work  \^'hich 
covers  the  cornices,  and  by  the  decoration  of  the  fillings 
of  the  elaborately  coved  and  richly  decorated  groinings. 
In  these  features  we  have  fair  grounds  upon  which  to 
form  an  idea  of  the  condition  of  wood-carving  at  the 
close  of  the  Gothic  period,  apart  from  that  of  figure 
sculpture,  of  which  some  few  examples  still  remain  also 
in  the  screens,  in  the  bench-ends,  beams  and  other 
portions  of  the  structures  of  the  roofs.  But  for  figure 
work  in  wood,  either  bas-relief  or  in  the  round,  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  English  artists  were  particularly 
distinguished,  though  we  may  find  here  and  there 
examples  of  rare  merit,  as  at  Lincoln  or  Worcester,  or 
in  certain  misericords.  Doubtless  the  foreigner  was 
frequently  called  in  for  any  fine  work.  What  there 
is  of  native  origin  in  the  West  of  England  is  generally 
but  a  rude  copying  from  Flemish  and  Italian  models 
or — as  in  the  case  of  such  figures  as  those  of  the 
Dartmouth  communion  table — from  German  sources. 
The  Italian  style  is,  naturally,  of  a  late  date,  and  bear- 
ing in  mind  the  amount  of  destruction  which  has  taken 
place,  it  is  but  fair  to  say  that  our  materials  for  forming 
an  opinion  are  but  scanty.  The  recent  exhibition  by 
the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  English  sculpture  in 
alabaster  is  evidence  that  in  this  material  at  any  rate 
this  country  could  produce  work  in  the  round  capable 
of  holding  its  own  with  any  other  of  the  period. 

If  the  rood-screen,  with  its  figures  and  with  the 
elaborately  canopied  work  of  the  front  of  the  loft,  no 
longer  exists,  we  may  at  least  be  thankful  that  the 
beautiful  substructure  and  the  delicately  carved  cornices 
and  traceried  vaultings,  which  at  one  time  supported 
the  gallery  flooring,  have  in  a  large  number  of  cases 

381 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

throughout  the  country,  and  especially  in  Dev^onshire, 
been  at  last  rescued  from  the  neglect  and  devastation 
to  which  the  bad  taste  of  the  nineteenth  century,  far 
more  than  the  Elizabethan  regulations,  had  reduced 
them.  Still,  as  not  one  single  example  exists  in  its 
original  form,  as  we  have  virtually  one  only  (at  Ather- 
ington)  retaining  part  of  the  original  gallery  front  and 
not  a  solitary  instance  of  a  rood,  what  we  have  to  deal 
with  are  fragments  only,  and  these  also,  in  many  cases, 
misplaced  and  worked  up  with  odds  and  ends.  The 
screen,  as  we  know  it  now,  is  simply  a  screen  and  nothing 
more.  It  accords  with  Elizabeth's  injunctions,  '  a 
comely  partition  between  the  chancel  and  the  church.' 
In  Devon  hardly  a  scrap  of  woodwork  remains  earlier 
than  the  fifteenth  century.  The  most  characteristic  we 
have  are  of  quite  the  end  of  that  epoch.  The  reign  of 
Henry  vii.  inaugurated  a  new  era  of  peace  and  pro- 
sperity, in  Devon  especially,  inducing  a  marvellous 
activity  in  the  building  and  decoration  of  churches. 
There  were  great  tracts  of  country  where  the  troubles 
excited  by  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  were  scarcely  felt  at 
all.  The  middle  classes  and  the  farmers  were  rich  and 
prosperous,  and  they  gave  freely  of  their  riches  for 
the  needs  of  the  Church.  It  may  be  said,  then,  that 
Devonshire  screens  are  all  much  about  the  same  date. 

Most  of  the  pre-Reformation  examples  seem  to 
belong  to  the  time  of  Henry  vii.  and  later,  when 
Gothic  art  was  merging  into  that  of  the  Renaissance, 
passing  through  the  iconoclastic  havoc  of  the  change 
of  religion,  profiting  by  a  short  period  of  restoration, 
and  being  again  *  plucked  down '  and  shorn  of  their 
principal  features  during  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Mr.  Bligh  Bond,  in  his  monumental  work  on 
Rood-screens  and  Rood-lofts,  dates  back  one  Devon- 
shire wood-screen,  that  at  Stoke-in-Teignhead,  to  the 
last  quarter  of  the  fourteenth  century  (1380- 1390). 
However  this  may  be — and  such  an  early  ascription  is 
382 


WEST   COUNTRY   SCREENS 

more  than  doubtful — we  are  more  concerned  with  those 
which  retain  their  original  ribbed  vaulting  and  fanwork 
filled  with  Perpendicular  tracery,  complex  feathering, 
heavily  foliated  cusps  and  richly  ornamented  inter- 
spaces. These  fill  a  period  of,  roughly  speaking,  about 
a  hundred  years  ;  that  is,  from  about  1420  to  1520,  the 
time  of  greatest  activity  having  been  probably  during 
the  last  half  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  system  of 
groined  covings  began,  perhaps,  in  the  previous  one. 
But  although  we  may  seem  to  be  guided  from  time  to 
time  by  certain  indications — such  as  shields  of  arms, 
devices  of  families  and  royal  emblems  such  as  the 
pomegranate  of  Aragon — these  may  not  always  be 
absolutely  reliable,  for  undoubtedly  there  was  a  certain 
amount  of  exchange  and  alteration,  as  in  the  case  of 
Atherington.  Documentary  evidence  is  almost,  if  not 
entirely,  wanting. 

The  carved  wood-screens  of  the  West  Country  are 
still  distinguished  by  the  solidity  and  massive  character 
which  are  characteristic  of  English  decorative  work. 
The  cornice  beams  are  huge  baulks  of  timber  selected 
with  the  greatest  care  from  native  oaks,  hard  as  iron, 
as  that  wood  grows  to  be  in  the  course  of  centuries. 
But  the  screen  as  now  existing  bears  but  a  slight  pro- 
portion of  the  dimensions  of  the  great  structure  which 
was  originally  raised.  The  order  of  1561  (3  Elizabeth) 
had  been  but  too  faithfully  obeyed.  This  was  that  in 
every  parish  church  '  the  rood-lofts  shall  be  so  altered 
that  the  upper  part  of  the  same  with  the  soller  be  quite 
taken  down  unto  the  upper  parts  of  the  vautes  by 
putting  some  convenient  crest  upon  the  said  beam 
towards  the  church,'  etc.  But  not  even  the  'vautes' 
were  spared  in  numberless  cases,  and  so  we  find  these 
now  replaced  by  a  flat  surface  with,  very  often,  scraps 
and  odds  and  ends  of  the  old  carvings  stuck  on  in  the 
most  meaningless  manner. 

The  admirable  foliage  work  which  covers  the  beams 

383 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

follows,  and  of  course  was  often  copied  from  stone 
sculpture.  Instances  might  be  multiplied  of  that  taken 
from  the  capitals  of  pillars  and  other  places :  oak  and 
other  leaf-work  and  vines  and  bunches  of  grapes.  It 
is  analogous  to  the  stone  models,  but  treated  with 
greater  breadth  on  the  larger  surface  of  the  spread  out 
bressummer.  The  species  of  foliage  used  was  in  general 
limited  to  the  flora  familiar  to  the  county.  The  vine, 
of  course,  from  its  symbolism  and  beauty  of  form  was 
bound  to  take  the  first  place,  and  next  the  oak.  The 
hedgerow  also  furnishes  its  contribution,  the  tangled 
'  traveller's  joy,'  the  wild  poppy  with  its  seed  vessels, 
the  prickly  holly,  acorns,  rows  of  filberts  and  the 
poisonous  berries  of  the  deadly  nightshade — we  should 
be  led  too  far  were  we  to  attempt  to  follow  them  all. 
It  is  strange,  however,  to  find  that  the  fern  is  rarely 
used.  The  vine-leaf  is  treated  in  a  variety  of  ways  : 
with  bulbous  centres,  as  are,  also,  the  leaves  of  the 
maple,  marsh  mallow  or  beech,  or,  most  characteristic 
of  all — stylistic  to  a  degree,  in  the  research  for  decorative 
application — lengthened  out  till  we  hardly  recognize  it, 
and  would  take  it  to  be,  rather,  a  fern  leaf  of  the  hart's 
tongue  variety.  The  screen  at  Atherington  especially 
exemplifies  this  feature ;  and  we  find  it  prominent  also 
at  Pinhoe  and  Burrington,  to  name  but  two  others, 
though  it  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  county  of 
Devon.  The  pomegranate  figures  frequently  with  its 
decorative  foliage,  the  fruit  either  in  its  ordinary  condi- 
tion or  cut  open  and  showing  the  seeds.  It  has,  of 
course,  its  special  signification  as  the  badge  of  Katharine 
of  Aragon,  and  we  find  it — at  Colyton,  for  instance — 
beautifully  figured  in  conjunction  with  Henry  the 
Eighth's  Tudor  rose. 

Foliage-work  is  certainly  the  most  striking  feature 
of  the  carving  on  the  cornices  of  these  West  Country 
rood-screens.  Than  wood  no  material  could  be  more 
appropriate.      The  system  followed  is,   of  course,  de- 

384 


CORNICES    OF    SCREENS 

rived  from  the  earlier  forms  in  stone  which  for  five 
hundred  years  at  least  had  abounded  in  every  country. 
It  was  perhaps  about  the  twelfth  century  that  the 
native  flora  first  began  to  replace  the  acanthus  and 
other  classical  formulae  of  Romanesque  times.  That 
the  earliest  inspiration  was  from  Syria  can  hardly  be 
doubted  :  not  necessarily  always  a  copy,  but  adapted 
and  perhaps  improved  upon.  Fern  leaf  and  lily  forms 
were  tentatively  used,  and  at  last  the  vine,  with  its 
symbolism,  and  the  oak  in  many  varieties,  predominate. 
But  there  is  always  a  process  of  evolution  going  on. 
The  vine,  for  example,  as  we  find  it  in  the  thirteenth- 
century  sculptures  of  Exeter,  differs  in  many  ways 
from  the  same  leaf  in  the  cornices  of  Atherington  or 
of  Kenton.  In  the  latter,  and  in  other  similar  cases, 
the  treatment  is  sometimes  fanciful  to  a  degree  which, 
while  it  is  not  lacking  in  attractiveness,  leaves  us  in 
doubt  as  to  the  kind  of  plant  which  is  intended.  In 
the  best  work  we  may  conclude  that  the  sculptor  had 
his  models  before  him,  freshly  gathered  perhaps  from 
the  neighbouring  woods  and  enclosures.  He  would 
have  sought  for  those  possessing  the  greatest  decorative 
value,  and  in  their  arrangement  for  his  preliminary 
sketch  he  would  have  availed  himself  principally  of 
the  general  outlines  of  their  foliage,  not  troubling  to 
keep  with  any  exactness  to  the  quality  of  the  dentella- 
tions  or  serrated  edges  and  minor  details.  He  would 
have  beaten  up,  waved,  folded  or  moulded  portions  of 
a  vine-leaf  here  and  there,  and  using  both  back  and 
front  would  have  given  special  value  to  the  lines  of  the 
ribs  and  veinings,  enlarging,  diminishing  or  varying 
the  natural  forms  as  his  fancy  might  suggest.  The 
result  would  not  have  been  a  copy  of  nature.  Such 
leaves  and  stalks  and  fruit  may  never  have  existed  :  at 
least,  they  are  often  difficult  to  identify.  Yet  we  are 
deceived  into  imagining  their  reality,  and  in  the  general 
effect  of  luxuriant  vegetation  we  are  not  concerned  to 
2  B  385 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

detect  anomalies.  It  is  true  art  which,  in  such  cases, 
confronts  us.  At  the  same  time  it  is  of  a  different 
nature  from  the  art  of  the  Bestiaries  in  which  we  are 
deluded  into  imagining  forms  to  be  possible  which  are 
but  creations  of  phantasy. 

A  classification  of  all  the  flora  employed  in  the 
West  Country  and  other  screens  of  wood  remains 
yet  to  be  made.  A  strict  research  would  probably 
reveal  that  besides  the  vine  and  oak,  which  are  the 
most  prominent,  many  of  the  most  homely  and 
commonplace  plants  would  be  found  :  for  example, 
the  wild  orchid,  the  coltsfoot,  trefoil  and  its  varieties, 
celandine,  fig,  ivy,  hop,  chicory,  wild  parsnip,  rosewort, 
chervil,  convolvulus,  holly,  poppy,  blackthorn,  the 
nut  tribe,  parsley,  briony,  nightshade,  or  hemlock ; 
with  the  leafage  of  chestnut,  beech,  elm,  sycamore, 
yew  and  other  trees,  and  much  else  besides.  We 
cannot  fail  to  remark  the  almost  total  absence  of 
flower,  though  fruit  is  used  constantly.  It  is  the 
foliage  which  appeals  :  neatly  arranged  or  thickly 
matted  together  with  the  tendrils  and  branch-work, 
slender  or  coarse  and  gnarled  as  the  case  may  be, 
bound  together  in  a  mass,  or  opened  up  by  delicate 
undercutting — a  seemingly  orderly  arrangement  of  a 
wilderness  of  growing  plant-forms. 

The  subject  of  the  varieties  of  flower,  foliage  and 
fruit  on  these  screens,  or  bench-ends,  and  their  treat- 
ment is  one,  however,  which  would  carry  us  to 
indefinite  lengths.  The  most  expert  of  botanists  also 
would  sometimes  find  himself  at  fault.  Yet  so 
English  in  character  and,  in  general,  so  English  in 
execution  is  this  woodwork  that  it  is  difficult  to 
confine  my  remarks  to  a  brief  epitome.  Few  but 
those  who  have  had  lengthened  opportunities  of 
studying  it  on  the  spot  could  fully  appreciate  the 
charm  arising  from  a  close  inspection  of  the  in- 
finite   variety    and    extraordinary    richness    of    these 

386 


CORNICES    OF    SCREENS 

interminable  lengths  of  chiselled  surfaces,  running  in 
ribband-like  bands  placed  one  over  the  other  across 
the  top  of  the  dividing  screen  of  the  mediaeval 
sanctuary ;  the  beauty  of  the  window  tracery  beneath, 
the  mouldings  and  canopy  work,  the  elegance  of  ogee 
curves  and  crocketed  arches,  the  vinework  trailing  its 
lengths  along,  with  here  and  there  bunches  of  its 
fruit,  here  and  there  birds  with  their  symbolism  ;  the 
gnarled  and  twisted  stems  curling  in  and  out  of  the 
leaf-work,  or  strained  as  it  were  into  the  semblance 
of  binding  cords  ;  the  open-worked  and  often  deeply 
undercut  branches  and  tendrils ;  the  creeping  and 
climbing  hedge  plants  interspersed  with  wild  rose  or 
eglantine,  with  poppy-pods  or  clusters  of  nuts,  even 
with  small  bouquets  of  wild  flowers,  and  the  hand 
grasping  them  as  at  Bridford ;  the  interlaced  and 
Celtic  knots,  sometimes  of  unusual  design  and  of 
excellent  simplicity,  such  as  we  find  in  the  fillets 
round  the  doorways ;  the  crestings  of  strawberry  leaf, 
or  of  a  series  of  five-lobed  flowers  alternately  upright 
or  reversed  ;  the  excellent  freedom  of  the  sharply 
chiselled  outlines  and  the  sure  hand  of  the  carver 
working,  as  is  evident,  straight  from  the  head  and 
following  no  mechanical  rule ;  the  admirable  effect  of 
the  play  of  light  and  shade ;  the  evidence  of  the  con- 
summate understanding  by  the  designer  of  his  work 
as  a  whole — all  this  and  more,  for  justice  to  be  done 
to  it,  would  require  the  systematic  visitation  of 
church  after  church,  and,  for  the  reader,  ample 
space  for  description  and  the  most  generous  amount 
of  illustration.^ 

^  A  very  large  number  of  plates  would  be  necessary  to  illustrate  the  remarks 
upon  the  foliage  character  of  screens  in  their  present  condition.  It  is  impracti- 
cable to  fulfil  this  requirement,  on  account  of  so  many  calls  for  illustration  in 
other  divisions  of  the  subject.  It  is  to  be  understood,  therefore,  that  the 
descriptions  given  above  do  not  apply  to  the  cornices  alone,  but  to  that  which 
is  to  be  found  also  in  the  groinings,  spandrels  and  window-traceries,  in  the 
filleting  of  doorways,  on  the  panellings,  in  the  pulpit  work,  and  incidentally  in 

387 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Amongst  this  wealth  of  fruit  and  foliage  work  it 
is  remarkable  that  animal  and  bird  life  holds  so 
small  a  place.  Except  here  and  there  a  bird  or  two 
pecking  at  the  grapes,  there  is  nothing.  The  fauna 
of  Devon  was  fairly  profuse.  Yet,  though  their  use 
as  imagery  also  was  well  known,  we  find  no  fox,  no 
badger,  wild  cat,  otter,  marten,  stoat  or  other  smaller 
inhabitant  of  woods ;  no  wild  cattle  or  swine,  no 
eagle,  hawk  or  heron  ;  not  even  the  ordinary  denizens 
of  the  poultry-yard.  The  Physiologies,  the  Book  of 
Beasts,  or  Bestiary,  is  absent.  Yet  in  these  same 
churches  we  have  only  to  go  to  the  misericords  and 
bench-ends  to  find  it  in  conjunction  with  this  same 
foliage  work.  We  cannot  tell  the  influences  which 
contributed  to  form  the  style  of  decoration  which  is 
so  fully  exemplified  in  these  screens.  The  investiga- 
tion of  its  origin  and  evolution  still  remains  to  be 
done.  The  ornamentation  has,  of  course,  followed 
from  stone  sculpture,  but  in  origin  it  is  derived  from 
the  Far  East  and  filtered  through  Byzantine  adapta- 
tions. Bishop  Bruere,  of  Exeter,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  travelled  and  resided  many  years  in  Eastern 
countries,  and  the  stall  work  of  Exeter  may  be  due 
to  him.  Many  a  traveller,  too,  brought  home  his 
recollections  of  such  works  as  the  throne  of  Maximian 

the  borderings  of  the  bench-ends.  A  certain  selection  of  members  from  the 
cornices  has  been  arranged  on  Plates  lvii.,  lviii.,  lix.,  but  it  (has  to  be  ad- 
mitted that  this  is  by  no  means  representative  of  the  great  diversity  of  this  kind 
of  ornament  which  prevails  in  Devon  and  elsewhere.  We  have  also  to  consider 
the  screens  not  only  as  they  are  now,  but  as  they  were  in  Catholic  times. 
Many  difficulties  presented  themselves  in  deciding  upon  any  one  general  view. 
Such  fine  examples  as  those  of  Atherington,  Lapford,  Kenton,  Kenn,  High 
Ham,  Fitzhead.  and  several  others  had  strong  claims,  of  one  sort  or  another, 
for  consideration,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  would  have  demanded  more  lengthy 
notices,  and  some  involve  questions  of  foreign  influence,  of  transitional  and 
mixed  styles,  and  of  pure  Renaissance.  It  was  therefore  thought  better  to  fall 
back  upon  portions  of  the  screens  of  Banwell,  in  Somersetshire,  of  Chawleigh, 
and  of  East  Portlemouth,  which  illustrate,  to  some  extent,  the  cornice  mouldings, 
vaultings  with  their  fillings  and  bosses,  window-traceries,  crestings,  and  mutila- 
tions which  are  the  most  usual  features  of  West  Country  screens  as  they  now 
appear. 

388 


PLATE   1. 1' I 


MS:^^tM^.. 


*r*<?s»«i;»3.'%£X:i 


CrrV^ySi/.ii/^-  v^'  V  -.^^^  V^^   '^'Vir^ 

fil^^^^t^^^  A^ki^x' Ji?^^  t^^-?  \t!t?X^ 


PARTS  OK  CHANCKL  SCREKNS 

I.    BANWEI.L.         2.    CHAWLBICiH.         3.    lOKTI.BMOUTH 
PA(iE    ]S8 


CHANCEL   SCREENS 

at  Ravenna,  the  ornament  of  which  is  derived  from 
Syria.  Again,  the  crusader  was  always  eager  to 
take  impressions  of  what  he  saw  in  the  holy  cities 
of  Syria.  Artists  and  artisans  in  their  train  no 
doubt  returned  home  laden  with  models  for  sculp- 
tural ornament. 

The  prevailing  system  of  the  East  could  not  have 
failed  to  make  a  deep  impression,  and  there  was 
ample  material  from  which  to  elaborate  any  amount 
of  fanciful  imagery,  adding  their  own  national  feeling. 
One  does  not  forget,  of  course,  that  the  earliest  of 
our  screens  is  some  two  hundred  years  later  than 
Bruere's  time,  but  the  earliest  existing  is  certainly 
not  the  first  of  its  type.  In  these  ages  of  Gothic 
art  the  root  principle  of  decoration  everywhere,  upon 
capital  and  frieze,  was  this  foliage  interlacement, 
mingled  with  animal  forms  which  Byzantine  art  had 
derived  from  Persia.  The  Celtic  influence,  which  some 
see  in  these  screens,  is  farther  to  seek.  We  find,  it 
is  true,  the  Celtic  knot  introduced  occasionally,  but 
the  system  and  feeling  are  different.  There  is,  however, 
no  space  here  to  follow  out  a  question  upon  which 
but  faint  glimmerings  of  light  are  apparent.  Yet 
a  hint  may  be  allowed  at  the  strange  relationship 
which  in  form  and  in  decoration  these  cornices  or 
bressummers  present  with  such  sculptures  as  those 
on  the  ruined  edifices  of  Mschatta  at  Makam  Ali  on 
the  Euphrates.  The  whole  spirit  is  here  the  same : 
vast  surfaces  of  convex  and  concave  members  covered 
with  a  similar  treatment  of  vines  and  vegetation. 
These  ruins  of  the  fourth  or  fifth  century  lie  in  the 
land  of  Jordan,  about  120  miles  south  of  Damascus. 
For  a  full  account  the  reader  must  be  referred  to  the 
erudite  article,  amply  illustrated,  by  Professor  Strzy- 
gowski  in  the  falirbuch  der  Koniglich  Preuszischen 
Ktcnstsammlungen,  vol.  xxv.,  1904. 

More  puzzling  than   questions  of   style  is  that  of 

389 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

the  sculptors  by  whom  these  works  were  executed. 
Within  so  limited  a  period  as  the  hundred  years  or  so 
embraced  by  these  screens  the  similarity  of  style  and 
design  is  so  great  that  it  must  have  been  due  to  some 
systematic  arrangement.  In  all  probability  the  start 
was  given  from  the  monasteries.  Possibly  Torre  and 
Tavistock  and  other  abbeys  sent  out  bands  of  monastic 
workmen.  That  would  have  been  in  accordance  with 
their  rule.  Even  to-day  the  monks  of  Buckfast  are 
rebuilding  with  their  own  hands,  on  the  old  founda- 
tions, their  abbey  church  on  the  banks  of  the  Dart, 
and  executing  the  whole  of  the  carving  in  wood  and 
stone.  Some  carved  work,  no  doubt,  would  have  been 
furnished  by  the  guilds  of  the  larger  cities,  and,  as  in 
the  case  of  many  bench -ends,  may  have  been  the  work 
of  local  carvers  in  the  parish  itself.  In  those  days  the 
instinct  for  art  had  penetrated  into  the  smallest  villages. 
A  certain  type  of  figures,  such  as  the  angels  common 
as  corbel-heads  and  on  the  hammer-beams  of  roofs, 
was  evidently  turned  out  commercially  in  quantities ; 
and  there  are  many  more  of  a  ruder  style  which  are 
village  work  copied  from  this  commercial  type,  or  from 
drawings  or  models,  which,  in  one  way  or  another,  were 
at  the  disposal  of  the  local  carver. 

Who,  then,  did  this  Western  work?  It  is  some- 
times assumed  that  foreigners  were  called  in,  that  the 
work  was  ordered  from  provincial  centres  such  as 
Exeter — even  from  London — or  executed  by  gangs  of 
peripatetic  craftsmen.  All  this  may  have  been  the  case 
under  varying  circumstances  of  time  and  place.  Then, 
again,  no  doubt  such  monasteries  as  Tavistock  or 
Buckfast  or  Torre  superintended  or  at  least  furnished 
plans  and  sketches.  Nothing  is  more  likely  also  than 
that  monks  were  sent  to  work  in  the  villages.  At  the 
present  day  there  are  extensive  wood-carving  estab- 
lishments at  Exeter  which  turn  out  screen  and  figure 
work   of  excellent  quality  in    considerable   quantities, 

390 


n.ATK  lAII 


I 


m 


-.■y^-^ 


;>.^: 


m  ■ 
■^'^  v.; 


-C^ 


y;    - 


i^^«^i 


i4 


.V 


'tell 


cm  i; 


'■^/■, 


CHANCEL   SCREENS 

sending  it  far  and  wide,  even  to  the  churches  of  the 
Australian  colonies.  Not  a  little  also  comes  from 
Germany  and  from  such  places  as  Ober-Ammergau. 
What  is  not  found  now,  but  what  was  common  in 
mediaeval  times,  is  the  collaboration  of  the  village 
craftsman.  To  him  we  doubtless  owe  many  bench- 
ends,  many  angel  figures  in  roofs,  many  misericords, 
perhaps  even  the  beautiful  canopies  of  honour  over 
the  roods,  as  at  Lapford.  Why  not,  also,  much  of 
such  work  as  the  foliaged  cornices  of  the  screens  ?  A 
case  in  point  is  that  of  Crosse,  the  master  carpenter  of 
Yatton.  If  we  may  take  it  that  he  himself  was  the 
sculptor,  probably  such  a  one  was  to  be  found  also  in 
many  villages.  Intercommunication  with  larger  towns 
was  not  such  a  simple  matter  in  those  days. 

Although,  then,  we  have  little  or  no  direct  informa- 
tion, and  the  churchwardens'  accounts — such  of  them 
as  we  have  of  the  periods  in  question — are  provokingly 
silent  on  the  matter,  nothing  would  have  been  more 
natural  than  that  a  parish  priest  and  his  parishioners 
should  have  done  much  of  the  carving.  It  is  so  even 
in  our  own  day.  The  late  Rev.  J.  L.  Fulford  of  Exeter 
was  a  good  amateur  carver,  as  his  son,  the  recently 
deceased  vicar  of  Hennock,  relates  in  a  memoir  of  his 
father,  and  much  work  in  Woodbury  Church — bench- 
ends  and  poppy-heads — was  done  by  him.  So  also  in 
many  other  places,  as  at  Ilfracombe,  bosses  of  roofs 
and  screen-work  have  been  copied  and  restored  from 
the  ancient  work  by  ladies  and  others  of  the  parish. 

The  question  of  the  employment  of  foreign  work- 
men is  one  that  in  the  absence  of  direct  evidence 
presents  many  difficulties.  Undoubtedly  Flemish, 
German  and  Italian  artists  were  at  work  in  Eng- 
land. In  the  case  of  wood-carving  we  shall  find  the 
style  of  the  last  named  especially  abundant  in  the 
decoration  of  churches — such  as  King's  College  chapel 
— and  in  the  staircases,  ceilings  and  panellings  of  the 

391 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

great  country-houses  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.  On  Devonshire  screens  and  bench-ends 
much  also  is  copied  and  adapted  from  Italian  panels 
and  doors  in  wood  which  are  still  existent.  But  when 
we  come  to  particular  cases  of  pre- Reformation  screen- 
work  opinions  will  differ.  It  is  commonly  held  that 
that  of  Colebrook,  Coleridge,  Brushford,  Kenton  and 
other  places  is,  in  part  at  least,  by  foreign  hands.  But 
however  much  the  style  may  point  that  way,  however 
great  may  be  the  similarity  to  be  found  in  the  often 
adduced  instance  of  the  peculiar  flamboyant  style  of 
the  screen  of  Saint-Fiacre-le-Faouet  in  Brittany,  the 
Flemish  inspiration  of  Kenton  or  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance character  of  the  later  screens,  we  need  not  be  com- 
pelled to  accept  the  inference.  Even  should  it  be 
suggestive,  the  great  bulk  of  the  design  in  general  and 
the  character  of  the  tracery  are  English. 

The  glorious  screen  at  Atherington — unique  in  the 
possession  of  its  original  gallery  front — that  at  Lapford, 
and  some  others  of  mixed  Gothic  and  Renaissance 
character,  are  usually  attributed  to  Italian  or  other 
foreign  workmen.  Against  this  it  may  be  said  that 
the  English  carvers  followed  the  universal  taste  and 
spirit  of  the  time,  and  had  no  hesitation  in  copying  to 
the  best  of  their  ability.  At  Atherington  English 
mannerism  is,  to  me,  apparent.  English  are  the 
large  angels  on  the  standards  ;  and,  from  the  same 
chisel,  English  are  the  piitti  in  the  fillings  of  the 
vaultings.  There  is  a  lack  of  refinement  and  of  Italian 
cachet,  and  creditable  as  they  may  be,  I  doubt  that  an 
Italian  critic  would  accept  them.  The  fine  Renaissance 
bench-ends  of  Lapford  have  the  solid  character  of 
English  work.  At  the  same  time  there  are  others — 
for  example,  the  panelling  at  Warkleigh — which  may 
call  for  a  different  judgment.  So  also  in  the  case  of 
bench-ends  such  as  those  in  the  church  of  Ashcombe, 
hidden  away  among  the  hills  of  the  Teign  valley. 
392 


CHANCEL   SCREENS 

However  well  supplied  with  models,  these  are  too  ^ood 
for  an  untrained  village  worker.  Reminding  one  of 
the  spirit  of  the  Japanese  netsukes  in  their  play  of 
fancy,  in  the  winged  demons  and  symbolical  imagery, 
and  in  the  boldness  and  precision  of  the  deep-cut 
carving,  they  are  the  work  of  a  cultivated  and  learned 
man,  as  well  as  of  an  accomplished  craftsman. 

As  a  rule  the  village  artist  had  little  or  no  didactic 
intentions.  When  we  find  the  appearance  of  these  in 
late  times  they  had  probably  lost  their  force,  and  were 
used,  as  we  use  such  things  to-day,  without  knowing 
precisely  why  we  do  so.  Most  likely  a  good  deal  of 
the  earlier  screen-work  w^as  not  only  directed  from, 
but  actually  carried  out  by,  carvers  supplied  by  the 
monasteries,  who  during  their  stay  in  the  villages 
would  have  instructed  the  local  talent.  Later  on, 
when  the  number  of  schools  and  guilds  increased, 
these  would  have  been  well  supplied  with  French 
and  Flemish  and  Italian  pattern-books  and  models. 
And  even  the  work  of  foreigners  permanently  settled 
in  the  country  and  assimilating  their  tastes  to  ours 
is  rightly  qualified  as  English,  as  in  the  cases  of  the 
silversmiths  Lamerie,  Kandler  or  Morel-Ladeuil,  of 
the  potter  Solon,  or  of  our  naturalized  English 
painters.  Nor  can  we  leave  out  of  account  the  in- 
timate relationships  between  our  ow^n  and  foreign 
monasteries  of  the  same  order  and  the  interchange  of 
their  inmates. 

It  is  often  the  case  that  a  screen  is  reputed  to 
have  come  from  some  local  monastery  at  the  dissolu- 
tion. For  example,  the  Brushford  (Somerset)  screen 
is  said  to  have  been  carved  by  the  monks  of  ]3arlinch 
for  their  priory  church.  The  custom  also  was  very 
general  of  ordering  a  new  screen  to  be  exactly  copied 
from  an  already  existing  one,  and  this  may  account 
for  a  good  deal  of  the  family  resemblance.  In  the 
highly   interesting   account-book   of  the    High    Cross 

393 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Wardens  of  the  parish  of  Stratton  we  find  an  in- 
denture of  agreement  in  the  year  1531  for  the  making 
of  a  new  rood-loft  '  after  the  form  and  fashion  in 
everything  as  the  rood-loft  of  St.  Kew,  with  a  crucifix, 
with  a  Mary  and  John,  and  all  other  workmanship 
after  the  fashion  of  Liskeard  church ' ;  and  there  are 
other  details,  such  as  the  provision  of  two  images 
and  tabernacles,  'the  one  to  be  of  Saint  Armele,  the 
other  of  the  Visitation  of  our  blessed  Lady.'  And 
there  are  sums  of  money  paid  to  '  John  Daw  the 
Kerver.'  We  note  also  the  extreme  care  taken  in  the 
choice  of  timber,  which  was  all  to  be  substantially 
seasoned,  and  of  one  manner  of  drying.  Seven  years 
was  allowed  for  the  completion  of  the  work,  and  the 
price  to  be  xlvi'-  viii'^-  the  foot.  In  1539  'the  sold  the 
olde  story  of  the  old  rood-loft,  for  vii'-  vi'^'  In  1549 
there  is  an  entry  of  the  'Taking  down  the  rode  and 
the  pagentes.'  But  on  the  loth  June  the  rebellion 
broke  out,  so  the  churchwardens  set  them  up  again. 
In  1572,  alas,  amongst  other  entries  of  destructions, 
we  have  '  rec"^-  of  Master  marrys  for  woden  angells 
iiii"^-,'  and  the  next  year  the  rode  and  loft  are  finally 
got  rid  of.  Extracts  from  other  churchwardens' 
accounts  could  be  referred  to,  if  space  permitted,  from 
which  the  fortunes  of  the  rood-screens  in  various  parts 
of  the  country,  couched  in  quaint  and,  it  must  be  said, 
contemptuous  language,  might  be  gathered. 

The  striking  character  of  English  work  is  its 
homeliness  and  sincerity.  Throughout  these  mediaeval 
times  the  relationship  was  intimate  between  the  artist 
and  the  most  humble  of  the  public  in  whose  interests 
he  worked.  Art  was  the  property  of  ordinary  folk  as 
well  as  of  the  learned,  and  it  was  addressed  in  the 
main  to,  or  intended  for  the  instruction  of,  those  who 
could  read  in  no  other  way.  The  inhabitant  of  the 
smallest  village  acquired  the  instinct  of  a  refined 
taste  from  his  earliest  years,  and  became  in  fact  a 
394 


CHANCEL  SCREENS 

competent  critic  of  the  value  of  that  of  which  he  was 
called  upon  to  bear  his  share  of  the  organization  and 
of  the  cost.  The  language  which  it  spoke  was  not 
one  appealing,  as  afterwards,  to  a  privileged  few,  but 
to  all.  It  was  a  necessity  of  existence,  innate  in  every 
one,  requiring  for  the  public  in  general  no  teacher, 
no  art  schools,  no  museums,  no  pressure  from  a 
paternal  government.  In  the  case  of  the  village  artist 
himself,  however  naive  his  ideas  may  have  been,  how- 
ever crude  his  skill,  there  remains  always  the  charm 
which  the  evidence  of  a  loyal  effort  to  overcome 
difficulties  and  the  individuality  of  the  worker  cannot 
fail  to  produce.  They  are  qualities  which  are  rare, 
indeed,  to  find  in  our  village  life  to-day.  Mr.  William 
Allingham,  in  his  diary  (published  in  1908),  forcibly 
asks,  'Where  did  the  good  taste  and  instinctive 
righteousness  in  former  days  come  from,  and  whither 
has  it  fled  ? ' 

An  examination  of  these  screens  opens  up  many 
questions  of  interest  relating  to  the  state  of  religious 
feeling  in  England  immediately  previous  to  and  con- 
current with  the  Reformation.  Granted  that  much 
figure  and  painted  work  was  destroyed,  what  remains 
shows  a  gradually  increasing  disuse  of  religious 
symbolism  and  devotional  suggestion ;  a  preference 
for  the  pagan  sentiment  of  the  Renaissance  ;  a  tendency 
to  the  personal  glorification  of  individuals,  such  as 
the  frequent  use  of  shields  of  arms  and  royal  emblems. 
There  is  but  a  last  lingering  trace  of  a  desire  to  inspire 
devotion  by  figures  of  holy  personages,  such  as  the 
prophets  (if  such  they  be,  and  not  divines  of  the  new 
creed),  in  the  Gothic  but  otherwise  totally  unreligious 
screen  at  Lustleigh.  It  is  small  wonder,  indeed,  that 
when  art  was  divorced  from  the  people  in  the  sensuous 
and  costly  cult  of  the  Renaissance,  devotion  went  with 
it,  and  the  people  themselves  lost  their  sense  of  refine- 
ment and  any  practice  of  art  itself. 

395 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

It  would  be  a  pleasant  task  to  describe  in  detail 
the  finer  work  of  such  noble  specimens  of  wood- 
carving  as  the  screens  of  Atherington,  of  Kenton, 
Lapford,  Chulmleigh,  Combe-in-Teignhead,  Hartland, 
Holbeton,  Kentisbeare,  Plymtree  and  many  more  in 
Devon  and  Cornwall ;  to  turn  to  Somerset  with  Ban- 
well,  High  Ham  or  Fitzhead,  or  to  go  to  Kent,  to  Nor- 
folk and  the  East  Coast,  and  to  Wales  especially,  which 
presents  so  many  points  of  interest,  but  a  volume  of  the 
size  of  the  present  one  would  hardly  suffice,  and  illus- 
trations also  would  require  to  be  plentiful.  For  much 
interesting  information  in  detail,  and  for  profuse  illus- 
tration, the  reader  may  be  referred  to  the  admirable 
works  lately  published  by  Mr.  Francis  Bond  and 
Mr.  Bligh  Bond  (see  Bibliography). 

In  the  condition  in  which  we  now  find  these  screens, 
often  shorn  of  their  principal  features,  or  disfigured  by 
restorations,  it  is  true  that  a  certain  amount  of  imagina- 
tion is  required  to  realize  their  appearance  as  they  once 
existed.  But  if  we  should  take  any  separate  portion,  a 
whole  range  of  foliate  cornice  or  a  single  specimen  of 
fan-traceried  vaulting,  and  inquire  into  the  value  of  the 
carving  and  how  far  the  carver  fulfilled  the  best  prin- 
ciples of  his  craft,  we  should  find  that  he  knew  how  to 
avoid  the  great  fault  of  modern  times  and  of  some  of 
the  restorers  of  these  screens.  It  is  the  fault  to  which 
Ruskin  so  forcibly  alludes  when  he  says :  '  It  is  not 
coarse  cutting,  it  is  not  blunt  cutting  which  is  bad  :  but 
it  is  cold  cutting — the  look  of  equal  trouble  everywhere, 
the  smooth  diffused  tranquillity  of  heartless  pains,  the 
regularity  of  a  plough  in  a  level  field.  If  completeness 
is  thought  to  be  vested  in  polish  and  to  be  attainable 
by  help  of  sandpaper,  we  may  as  well  give  the  work  to 
the  engine  lathe  at  once.  But  right  finish  is  simply 
the  full  rendering  of  a  well-intended  and  vivid  impres- 
sion, and  it  is  oftener  got  by  rough  than  fine  handling.' 
In  these  flowing  masses  of  vegetable  life,  leaf  and  ten- 
396 


PLATE  l.VIII 


<    a 


2    _ 

::>   3 
?.    i    » 


—    J 

•J     X 


FOLIAGE   WORK 

dril  contending  for  the  mastery  of  growth,  almost  as  the 
wild  vine  or  clinging  hopbine  do  a'mid  the  tangle  of  the 
lofty  Devonshire  hedge,  the  sculptor — to  borrow  once 
more  from  Ruskin — '  paints  with  his  chisel,  puts  power 
with  his  touches  into  the  form.  They  are  touches  of 
light  and  shadow  :  they  raise  a  ridge  or  sink  a  hollow 
to  get  a  line  of  light  or  a  spot  of  darkness.' 

Characteristic,  above  all,  in  these  masses  of  foliage 
which  meet  the  eye  in  the  cornices  of  every  Devon 
screen  are  the  grace  and  elegance  of  the  vine  A\'ork  ;  not 
symmetrical  with  leaves  of  identical  form  and  bunches 
of  fruit  as  we  meet  with  elsewhere,  but  flourishing  wild 
and  free.  Here,  and  in  the  rest  of  the  tangled  foliage, 
there  is  the  spontaneous  outcome  of  the  carver's  thoughts 
as  he  worked  perhaps  with  no  pattern  before  him.  Here 
is  originality,  nothing  stolen  from  great  masters  of  en- 
graving and  etching.  The  impulse  is  from  nature,  but 
it  is  followed  freely,  every  plant  adapted  to  suit  the 
purpose,  almost  regardless  of  absolute  fidelity  to  truth 
of  form,  more  careful  to  attract  by  the  beauty  of  the 
long-rolling  curves  of  the  festoons  of  leafage  contrast- 
ing with  one  another,  curve  competing  with  curve  as 
they  twine  around  the  twisted  ropes,  or  rough  formed 
tendrils,  which  pass  along  from  end  to  end  ;  careful 
too,  that  strength  may  not  be  sacrificed  by  undue  un- 
dercutting or  projections.  And  then,  again,  how  true 
to  the  Gothic  spirit  are  the  lines  of  the  traceried  fenes- 
trages  ;  that  spirit  itself  derived,  it  has  been  said,  from 
the  suggestion  of  some  leafy  avenue,  arches  of  branches 
and  foliage  meeting  overhead,  and  what  more  appro- 
priate material  could  we  find  to  illustrate  it  I 

Again  carrying  our  thoughts  back  to  the  time  when 
these  screens  were  in  the  pride  of  their  beauty,  if  we 
wish  to  realize  the  full  intentions  of  their  creators,  we 
have  to  imagine  them  not  with  an  aspect  of  the  newly 
chiselled  oak,  not  even  with  the  mellow  tone  which  age 
and  use  gives  to  wood,  but  brilliant  with  colour  and 

397 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

gilding,  not  an  inch  of  the  surfaces  left  plain.  In  some 
cases  the  restorer  has  tried  his  hand  at  renewing  this 
coloration  also.  But  either  because  we  are  not  in 
sympathy  with  mediaeval  feeling,  or  from  want  of  skill, 
these  attempts  have  in  few  cases  been  a  success.  The 
art  is  lost.  In  modern  hands  the  results  are  glaring, 
tawdry,  vulgar  and  shining  with  varnish.  There  is  an 
entire  absence  of  consideration  for  lights  and  shades, 
and  for  the  atmosphere  and  conditions  in  which  the 
work  now  finds  itself  Doubtless  those  who  made 
these  screens  were  as  well  able  as  ourselves  to  appreciate 
the  beauty  and  harmony  of  wood  left  in  its  original 
purity,  toned  down,  perhaps,  or  waiting  for  the  addi- 
tional concord  which  time  would  supply.  However 
this  may  be,  there  can  be  little  question  concerning 
the  taste  which  will  prefer  Kenton,  or  Atherington, 
to  the  garishness  of  Bovey  Tracey  or  Bradninch. 
Where  the  carver's  work  is  missing,  from  destructions, 
we  may  be  able  to  replace  it  by  copying  that  which 
exists ;  but  the  painter's  is  no  longer  before  us  :  that  is 
to  say,  in  the  spirit  of  the  whole  conception.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  painting  and  gilding  on  the  new  screen 
at  Littleham,  near  Bideford,  has  been  executed  in  a 
manner  which  is  probably  much  more  in  harmony  with 
the  mediaeval  system  than  we  find  in  the  restorations 
elsewhere. 

Remains  of  colour  and  gilding  are  fairly  frequent, 
and  in  some  cases,  as  at  Bridford,  to  a  considerable 
extent.  The  general  question  of  the  polychromatic 
decoration  of  sculpture  has  already  received  attention 
here  at  considerable  length  and  need  not  be  repeated. 
The  medium  used  for  the  screen  -  work  is  somewhat 
uncertain.  Roughly  speaking,  it  was  a  thin  spirit,  or 
the  colour  was  ground  in  water  with  size,  white  of  egg 
or  other  colloid  :  oil  was  seldom,  if  ever,  used  in  the 
earlier  mediaeval  times.  Whatever  the  medium,  it 
imparted  a  delicate  bloom  and  did  not  conceal  entirely 
398 


POLYCHROMATIC   DECORATION 

the  texture  of  the  wood,  even  in  the  twists  of  red  and 
white,  black,  or  green  and  white,  on  the  beads  and 
columns.  The  great  difference  between  the  old  colour- 
ing and  the  modern  restoration  shows  that  the  one  was 
done  by  an  artist,  the  other  in  the  spirit  of  the  house- 
painter.  In  the  earlier  times  we  may  remember  that 
there  were  artists  who  could  design  and  paint  such 
admirable  panels  as  those  of  Hennock.  These  are 
English  work,  the  delicately  drawn  outlines  having  the 
sweep  and  decision  of  single  stroke  drawing.  Doubt- 
less the  screen  painters  were  equally  able  and  refined. 
The  artist  kept  in  mind  his  subordination  to,  and  de- 
pendence on,  his  surroundings  in  the  general  architec- 
tural scheme  of  the  building,  and  the  play  of  light  and 
shade  in  his  carved  work.  His  foliage  and  fruit  were 
not  in  one  uniform  stage  of  growth,  and  his  colour  of 
one  uniform  tone  from  one  end  to  the  other.  His 
grapes  are  ripening  or  ripe,  his  leaves  in  summer 
bloom,  or  autumn  decay,  and,  however  wild  and  luxuri- 
ant the  masses  of  foliage  may  be,  the  scheme  is  abso- 
lutely subordinate  to  the  breadth  of  the  masses  of  light 
and  shade.  The  chisel  and  the  brush  worked  together, 
and  the  wielder  of  both  was  careful  not  to  overcharge 
the  ornamentation.  In  this  lies  the  true  test  of  his 
work.  In  good  work  neither  can  be  overdone.  Re- 
marks of  this  kind  apply,  of  course,  only  to  the  best 
examples.  It  cannot  be  asserted  that  the  merit  is  equal 
everywhere.  Sometimes  we  find  in  the  cornices — for 
example,  at  Bradninch — a  monotonous  regularity  and 
repetition  of  the  same  motive :  turned  out  by  the  yard, 
as  it  were,  with  the  '  cold  cutting '  which  has  been 
quoted.  And  more  than  one  contract  stipulates,  as  in 
the  Stratton  accounts,  the  price  per  foot  run.  At  Bovey 
Tracey  the  bunches  of  vine  leaves  and  grapes  on  the 
cornices  are  too  regularly  repeated  at  intervals.  We 
are  not  bound  to  admire  everything  because  it  is  old. 
The  examination  of  these  carvings  could  be  pursued 

399 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

to  a  length  of  which  the  plan  of  this  book  will  not  permit. 
In  point  of  numbers  alone  the  wood-screens  since 
the  unearthing  process  of  the  last  twenty-five  years  or 
so,  go  far  beyond  what  most  people  would  imagine. 
In  Devon,  Messrs.  Bond  and  Camms'  work,  the  latest 
authority  on  the  subject,  includes  no  less  than  a  hundred 
and  forty  in  various  states  of  original  condition  and 
restoration,  and,  besides  fragments,  a  list  of  seventy- 
eight  removed  or  destroyed  during  the  last  century. 
In  Somersetshire  upwards  of  seventy  rood  and  parclose 
screens  are  noted,  and  throughout  England  and  Wales 
the  number  is  correspondingly  large. 

It  is  not  without  considerable  reluctance  that  one 
like  the  present  writer,  whose  acquaintance  with  the 
West  Country  and  its  churches  has  been  lifelong,  is 
compelled  to  treat  the  subject  but  superficially.  There 
are  few,  indeed,  familiar  with  Devonshire  to  whom  the 
name  alone  does  not  recall  pleasant  memories  of  its 
vales  and  combes,  its  leafy  high-hedged  lanes,  its  ruddy 
soil  and  green-covered  cliffs,  contrasting  with  the  peace- 
ful blue  of  the  calm  estuaries,  the  valleys  of  Teign  and 
Tamar  and  of  Dart,  the  rich  and  flourishing  farms  and 
orchards,  or  the  stretches  of  desolate  moors  so  pictur- 
esquely broken  by  earn  and  crag  and  coloured  heather. 
Apart  from  all  this  are  the  numberless  shrines  which 
hold  the  woodwork  with  which,  however  summarily, 
we  have  been  occupied.  In  Devon  and  Cornwall,  on 
whatever  eminence  we  may  chance  to  stand,  we  shall 
have  in  view  hardly  ever  less  than  four  or  five  typical 
churches  with  the  long  low  roofs  of  the  aisles  and  the 
stately  pinnacled  towers.  Some,  as  at  Kenton,  are 
almost  cathedral-like  in  dimensions  and  in  remains  of 
former  magnificence.  Some,  again,  of  unaccountable 
spaciousness  are  to  be  found  in  the  quietest  of  secluded 
villages,  difficult  of  access,  or,  as  at  remote  Morwenstow, 
where  the  builders  could  never  have  expected  its  soli- 
tudes to  have  tempted  men  to  form  a  population  equal 
400 


ri.ATF  L/X 


O  bl 

O  X 


Z    fri- 


—    > 
<    H 


WEST   COUNTRY  CHURCHES 

to  the  capacity  of  its  church.  Yet,  as  Hawker,  the 
poet-vicar,  loved  to  think,  'our  forefathers  purposely 
placed  their  churches  far  off  in  order  that  there  might 
be  a  church  path  to  be  trodden  as  the  journey  of  the 
worship  day,  a  road  of  quiet  thought.'  Hardly  one  of 
these  churches  but  is  now  adorned  by  specimens  of 
English  wood-carving.  And  if,  when  we  look  at  the 
best  examples  we  can  imagine  them  as  they  were  when 
doubtless  a  village  festival  celebrated  their  completion, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  we  have  as  much  reason 
to  be  proud  of  them  as  the  Frenchman  has  of  Amiens 
or  the  German  of  Ulm.  Certainly,  in  no  other  land 
can  such  a  profusion  of  wood-carving  be  found  in  village 
churches  as  in  those  of  the  two  counties  alone  of  Devon 
and  Somerset. 


2  c  401 


CONCLUSION 

IN  the  endeavour  which  has  been  made  in  the  fore- 
going pages  to  follow  a  very  comprehensive  subject, 
our  attention  has  been  confined,  for  the  most  part, 
to  the  three  centuries  during  which  Gothic  art  may 
be  said  to  have  arisen,  to  have  shaken  off  the  torpor 
and  subjection  to  hieratic  prescriptions  under  which  all 
forms  of  art  had  long  suffered,  to  have  attained  its 
highest  development,  to  have  been  influenced  by  and 
to  have  finally  succumbed  to  the  complete  change  of 
system  that — speaking  generally  and  without  reference 
to  its  origins — we  are  accustomed  to  term  the  Renais- 
sance. The  spirit  of  Gothic,  which  although  subordinate 
to  religion  had  still  worked  in  liberty  with  regard  to  de- 
tails, died  out  and  became  replaced  by  a  more  regulated 
system  based  on  forms  and  traditions  derived  from 
the  classical  antiquities  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The 
superabundance  of  material  is  so  great,  that  even  while 
limiting  our  attention  to  the  Western  world  it  has 
been  necessary  to  draw  the  line  somewhere,  and  it  is 
at  this  point — that  is  to  say,  at  the  period  when  the 
difference  of  styles  was  becoming  definitely  and  uni- 
versally marked — that  a  pause,  at  least,  has  been  made. 
But  much  more  remains  to  be  noticed  of  the  decorative 
and  sculptural  application  of  wood  from  this  time  to 
our  own  day. 

From  at  least  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
new  system  had  imposed  itself  on  sculpture  in  wood,  on 
statuary  and  small  figure  work,  and  on  the  decoration 
of  furniture  no  less  than  on  great  sculpture  in  marble 
or   bronze,    on   goldsmiths'   work,   or  on  architecture. 

402 


CONCLUSION 

Later  on  the  arts  became  less  and  less  the  property 
of  the  people  generally,  who  had  until  then  shared 
them  in  common  with  the  learned  and  wealthy.  Reli- 
gious changes  caused  a  decline  in  the  spirit  of  devotion, 
with  the  result  that  the  lower  orders  lost  their  direct 
interest  in  the  decoration  of  their  churches,  and,  with 
it,  their  good  taste  and  capability  of  expressing  it.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  an  age  of  elegance,  of  refinement 
and  of  luxury.  Courts  and  princes  vied  with  each  other 
in  the  patronage  of  the  arts,  led  by  Italy,  which  at  the 
height  of  her  prosperity  under  such  princes  as  the 
Sforza,  the  d'Este,  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  or 
Leo  X.,  sent  out  in  all  directions  to  discover  the 
treasures  of  antiquity  for  the  inspiration  of  the  artists 
in  their  service. 

Naturally  there  was  a  period  of  transition  before 
Gothic  feeling  and  ideas  gave  way  completely  to  the 
new  system.  Nor  must  w^e  forget  also  that  the  revival 
or  Renaissance  was  no  suddenly  completed  revolution, 
and  that  mediaeval  and  classical  art  are  logically  and 
necessarily  more  nearly  related  than  they  may  seem 
to  be.  It  is  not  surprising  that  for  a  time  the  two 
went  side  by  side.  Instances  could  be  multiplied  in 
the  figure  and  decorative  sculpture  in  wood  of  every 
country,  and  it  is  not  always  easy  to  qualify  the  style 
w^hich  resulted  from  the  mixture.  Even  so  late  as  the 
first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  doors  of  the 
cathedral  of  Aix  (of  which  excellent  reproductions  may 
be  seen  in  the  gallery  of  casts  of  the  Kensington 
Museum)  are  evidences  that  the  older  feeling  died  hard. 
For  however  admirable,  taken  collectively,  these  sculp- 
tures may  be,  neither  the  canopies  nor  the  ogee  arches 
nor  the  floral  borders  can  make  them  Gothic.  In  essen- 
tials, notwithstanding  the  motives  borrowed  from  the 
earlier  style,  they  are  purely  classical,  even  to  the 
costumes  of  the  prophets.  So  is  it  again  with  the 
charming   furniture   and   other   decorative   carving   in 

403 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

walnut  of  the  Chateau  of  Gaillon.  This,  entirely  the 
work  of  French  sculptors,  despite  the  presence  of,  and 
possible  direction  by,  Italian  artists,  is  a  mixture,  or 
rather  arrangement,  of  Renaissance  and  Gothic  styles. 
The  panellings  are  magnificent,  with  their  semi-Gothic 
window  -  traceries,  their  semi  -  Renaissance  pilasters 
covered  with  arabesques,  their  pointed  arches  enriched 
to  overloading  with  cupids,  vases  and  birds  in  full 
relief. 

These  two  examples  have  been  selected,  because, 
although  the  same  story  of  the  invasion  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance  may  everywhere  be  read,  it  was  to  be  found 
exemplified  in  the  highest  degree  in  France,  while,  at 
the  same  time,  there  was  no  slavish  following,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  a  national  independent  movement. 

In  Italy  the  consideration  of  the  choir  and  stall 
work  which  adorn  innumerable  religious  edifices  would 
open  up  so  extended  a  subject,  not  only  in  Gothic,  but 
also  in  Transition  and  in  full  Renaissance  times,  that 
sufficient  space  could  not  be  devoted  to  it.  Nor  could 
it  be  entirely  dissociated  from  the  mass  of  marquetry 
work  with  which  some  of  the  greatest  names  are 
connected.  We  should  find  the  latter  not  only  in 
the  veneered  mosaic  style  of  various  coloured  woods 
exhibiting  landscapes,  still-life,  architecture,  and  figures 
to  which  the  term  tarsia  is  more  properly  applied,  but 
also  in  the  use  of  the  symmetrically  arranged  geometri- 
cal inlays  called  certosina.  This  marquetry  is  intimately 
connected  with  the  sculptured  work,  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  consider  the  one  without  the  other.  Had  it 
been  otherwise  we  should  have  noticed  the  entirely 
Gothic  choir  executed  at  Siena  by  Domenico  di  Niccol^ 
in  14 1 5,  and  many  more  either  still  purely  Gothic  or 
mixed  with  the  newer  style.  For  similar  reasons  of 
want  of  space  it  has  been  necessary  to  pass  by  such 
important  examples  of  wood  sculpture,  and  such  pro- 
minent names,  as  the  cassoni,  candelabra,  and  the  host 
404 


CONCLUSION 

of  other  decorative  furniture  of  a  Baccio  d'Agnolo  or 
of  a  Giovanni  Barili,  carver  of  the  great  doors  of  the 
stanze  of  the  Vatican.  The  marriage  cassoni  and  other 
carved  chests  alone  furnish  material  for  a  very  extended 
notice.  They  were  usually  of  walnut,  of  sarcophagus 
form,  the  panels  filled  with  mythological  and  historical 
subjects  deeply  carved,  relieved,  or  even  completely 
covered,  with  gilding,  supported  on  claw  feet,  and  often 
bearing  caryatid  figures  in  the  round  at  the  angles. 
Even  the  most  ordinary  furniture,  such  as  chairs,  was 
richly  carved  with  a  similar  character  of  figure  work, 
and  amongst  such  things  few  are  more  striking  than 
the  bellows,  usually  of  walnut,  of  which,  no  less  than 
other  great  museums,  our  own  at  Kensington  possesses 
a  rich  collection. 

In  France,  until  well  into  the  sixteenth  century, 
wood-carving  continued  faithful  to  Gothic  traditions 
and  methods.  Burgundy  had  been  annexed  to  France 
in  the  last  quarter  of  the  preceding  century,  and  it  is  to 
the  influence  of  that  school  that  w^e  owe  later  on  the 
richest  and  most  charming  creations  of  the  sculptors 
of  the  monumental  pieces  of  furniture.  Mention  has 
already  been  made  of  Michel  Colombe  and  the  activity 
with  which  wood  sculpture  was  practised  in  Touraine 
and  all  down  the  banks  of  the  Loire.  Here  also 
flourished  later  on  Hugues  Sambin,  the  great  memiisier 
of  Dijon. 

Although  the  art  of  the  wood-carver  of  the  sixteenth 
century  in  France,  and  indeed  in  every  other  country, 
has  primarily  to  be  considered  as  furniture,  this  does 
not  exclude  ample  material  in  the  figure  and  other 
decorative  work  which  was  so  lavishly  applied  to  it, 
and  would  justify  our  regarding  it  from  the  same  point 
of  view  as  in  the  earlier  periods.  When  Gothic  ideas 
were  dying  or  had  died  out,  France,  incited  from  Italy, 
fell  in  with  the  idea  of  returning  to  the  study  of  the 
antique  ;  yet,  though  borrowing  the  Italian  new  methods, 

405 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

she  adapted  them  in  her  own  way,  impressing  them 
with  the  unmistakable  cachet  of  her  own  genius.  The 
reign  of  Francois  i.  was  characterized  by  immense 
luxury  and  display,  not  only  in  the  architecture  of  the 
numerous  palaces  and  chateaux,  but  in  the  furniture 
and  sculptured  woodwork  which  adorned  them.  Till 
then  the  huchers  and  imagiers  had  kept  in  general  to 
Gothic  methods  and  traditions.  Now,  or  at  least  in 
the  reign  of  his  son  Henri  ii.,  they  are  influenced 
by,  and  almost  exclusively  draw  their  models  from, 
quite  another  class  of  artists.  The  inspiration  is  still 
architectural,  but  from  civil  instead  of  ecclesiastical 
precedents.  They  follow  the  designs  prepared  by 
architects,  draughtsmen,  and  engravers  of  ornament, 
and  we  should  find  amongst  the  authors  of  these 
designs  such  illustrious  names  as  the  Burgundian 
Hugues  Sambin,  the  Parisian  Du  Cerceau,  Philibert  de 
rOrme,  Bachelier  of  Toulouse,  Pierre  Lescot,  Jean 
Bullant,  Jean  Goujon,  and  Germain  Pilon. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  art  of  the  wood-carver 
passes  mainly  into  the  domain  of  domestic  furniture, 
applied  to  cabinets,  tables,  chairs,  bedsteads,  staircases, 
fireplaces,  panellings,  ceilings  and  a  host  of  minor 
things,  although  at  the  same  time  much  ecclesiastical 
ornament,  such  as  rood-screens  and  choir-work,  still 
calls  for  attention.  It  is  the  age  of  the  great  massive 
armoire  or  cabinet,  the  buffet  and  the  huge  impos- 
ing bedsteads  decorated  with  the  utmost  profusion  of 
carved  figures  and  panels  in  high  and  low  relief.  The 
inspiration  is  still  always  from  architecture,  imitative 
of  its  general  lines  and  classical  entablatures,  for  de- 
corative rather  than  for  constructive  reasons.  Every- 
where apparent  are  the  designs  of  the  great  draughtsmen 
just  mentioned :  everywhere  is  the  same  prevailing 
taste  for  an  astounding  mixture  of  triumphs,  pilasters, 
colonnettes,  caryatid  figures,  festoons,  scrolls,  broken 
pediments,  garlands,  frets,  and  mouldings  of  all  kinds, 
406 


CONCLUSION 

masks,  strapwork,  balusters,  urns,  arabesques,  sirens, 
fauns,  satyrs,  griffins,  nymphs  and  cupids,  sphinxes, 
dolphins — a  whole  world  of  real  and  imaginary  beings  : 
overloaded  perhaps,  yet  supremely  elegant.  How  far 
the  illustrious  names  of  Sambin,  to  whom  are  attributed 
the  great  doors  of  the  Palais  de  Justice  at  Dijon,  or  of 
Jean  Goujon,  for  the  doors  of  Saint  Maclou,  may  be 
identified  as  the  actual  sculptors  may  be  uncertain,  but 
the  influence  of  their  designs  is  apparent.  Casts  of 
both  works  are  in  the  Kensington  Museum. 

Although  nothing  would  be  more  difficult — it  might 
even  be  said  hopeless — than  an  attempt  to  classify  the 
schools  of  wood-carving  in  France  of  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries,  and  to  assign  with  certainty  this  or 
that  piece  to  one  or  the  other  of  them,  yet  we  are  able 
to  connect  them  with  certain  names,  and,  in  some  cases, 
with  certain  styles.  As  a  general  rule  oak  is  character- 
istic of  the  north,  and  hardly  goes  farther  south  than 
Burgundy,  south  of  which  region  walnut  prevails.  Of 
the  schools  of  Normandy,  Brittany  and  the  north 
generally  we  have  the  stalls  of  Amiens,  the  doors  of 
the  cathedrals  of  Beauvais  and  of  Saint  Maclou.  The 
He  de  France,  Touraine  and  the  banks  of  the  Loire  are 
of  the  school  of  Philibert  de  I'Orme,  of  Pierre  Lescot, 
of  Jean  Goujon,  of  Du  Cerceau  and  of  Germain 
Pilon.  With  Sambin  we  connect  the  Burgundian  and 
Lyonese  regions,  and  the  neighbouring  Dauphiny.  At 
Toulouse  Bachelier  seems  to  have  exercised  the  same 
influence  as  Sambin  in  Burgundy.  Of  this  school  is 
the  choir  of  Auch.  The  wood  sculpture  of  Auvergne  is 
especially  remarkable.  If  France  has  been  able  to  keep 
for  her  own  great  museums  the  greater  proportion  of 
the  splendid  examples  of  wood  sculpture  which  her 
genius  produced  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  if  we 
possess  comparatively  little  indeed  at  South  Kensing- 
ton or  even  in  the  Wallace  Museum,  we  may  be  grateful 
that  we  have,  in  the  Salting  and  Vaughan  bequests,  those 

407 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

splendid  panels  in  walnut  and  pearwood  which  illustrate 
the  school  of  Auvergne.  Nothing  could  exceed  the 
elegance  and  charm  in  treatment  of  these  characteristic 
examples  of  the  Renaissance  art  of  the  period  of 
Franc^ois  i. :  the  busts  of  men  and  women  issuing  in 
three-quarter  high  relief  from  the  circular  medallions 
among  delicate  arabesques  of  leaf  scroll  work.  Of  the 
style  of  Philibert  de  I'Orme  we  happily  possess  also  at 
Kensington  a  sufficiently  characteristic  example  in  such 
a  cabinet  as  the  one  (No.  2573),  completely  covered 
with  arabesques,  sphinxes,  caryatid  figures,  trophies 
of  arms,  Corinthian  pilasters,  masks  and  other  orna- 
ment ;  and  of  the  art,  or  influence,  of  Sambin,  the  walnut 
cabinet  dated  1580  at  one  time  in  the  Seilli^res  collec- 
tion. There  is  also,  from  the  Soulages  collection,  a  fine 
dressoir  attributed  to  Bachelier,  but  this  is  somewhat 
later  than  his  time. 

We  need  not  follow  the  effect  of  the  Renaissance  in 
other  countries.  The  art  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
cosmopolitan,  international.  The  models  were  the  same 
everywhere.  There  was  practically  but  one  system, 
the  subjection  to  the  victorious  Italian  invasion,  more 
or  less  refined  in  appreciation  according  to  each  nation's 
taste  and  genius. 

In  France  from  the  seventeenth  century  there  were 
no  longer  distinctive  schools.  The  provinces  were 
merged  in  that  of  Paris.  Sculpturesque  wood-carving 
declined  :  it  was  the  age  of  marquetry  and  of  dainty 
boudoir  furniture  enriched  by  the  art  of  the  bronze 
founder  and  chaser.  Boulle,  Gouthiere,  Riesener,  David 
Roentgen  and  their  contemporaries  reign  supreme. 
Without  proposing  the  least  in  the  world  to  enter  into 
details  which  could  have  no  place  in  such  a  summary 
as  the  present  one,  the  reader  may  be  reminded  of  a 
few  names  of  other  decorators  who,  with  those  just 
named,  illustrate  the  history  of  sculpture  in  wood,  as 
applied  to  furniture,  from  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
408 


CONCLUSION 

teenth  to  well  on  into  the  eighteenth  century.  Chief 
amongst  them,  and  one  of  the  earliest,  was  Charles  le 
Brun,  the  director  of  a  whole  army  of  workers  for  the 
court  of  Louis  xiv.  under  the  protection  of  Cardinal 
Mazarin.  In  his  employ,  Jean  Bdrain,  Jean  le  Pautre, 
Girardon,  Jean  Marot  and  his  son  Daniel  are  all  names 
connected  in  one  way  or  another  with  our  subject. 
Daniel  Marot  is  of  especial  interest  to  us.  Exiled  into 
Holland  he  was  the  means  of  disseminating  the  French 
style  in  our  own  country,  where  he  died,  and  the  in- 
debtedness to  him  both  of  Grinling  Gibbons  and  of 
Chippendale  could  not  be  overlooked.  One  more  name 
amongst  those  who  worked  under  le  Brun  must  not  be 
forgotten.  This  is  the  Italian  Philippe  Caffieri,  who 
was  especially  distinguished  as  a  wood  sculptor.  The 
fine  doors  of  the  great  staircase  at  Versailles  are  his 
work. 

Wood  sculpture  in  England  of  the  late  fifteenth, 
of  the  sixteenth  and  of  the  seventeenth  centuries  pos- 
sesses in  its  domestic  character  features  of  very  strong 
national  interest.  Probably  in  no  other  country  is 
there  still  existing,  outside  museums,  such  a  wealth  of 
carved  woodwork  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  almost  count- 
less great  country-houses  throughout  the  land,  where  it 
serves  the  same  purposes  of  ornament  and  usefulness, 
and  is  in  many  cases  in  the  possession  of  the  same 
historic  families  as  in  the  days  when  it  was  erected  or 
made.  Not  only  is  it  to  these  great  houses  that  we 
have  to  look  for  our  treasures  in  wood  in  the  shape  of 
cabinets  and  decorative  furniture  of  other  countries,  but 
it  is  in  them  that  still  exist,  in  situ,  the  massive  carved 
staircases,  doorways,  chimney-pieces,  panellings  of 
rooms,  mirror  and  picture  frames,  imposing  bedsteads, 
tables,  chairs  and  a  host  of  other  furniture  of  a  period 
of  at  least  two  hundred  years,  during  which  the  use  of 
wood  for  decoration  was  so  general.  Nor  should  our 
interest  be  confined  to  these  two  hundred  years  only. 

409 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

In    mediaeval   times    dense   forests   of    oak   abounded 
thiroughout  the  country,  and  afforded  the  most  easily- 
worked  material  for  the  construction  of  whole  cities. 
Houses  were  framed  together,  necessitating  the  use  of 
vast  posts  or  gigantic  squared  pillars — almost  trees — 
such  as  we  find  in  many  a  half-timbered  church  tower. 
The  stories  projected  one  over  another,  and  this  method 
of  using  large  surfaces  of  exposed  wood  afforded  con- 
siderable  scope   for   carved  work  in  the   overhanging 
fronts,  gable-ends,  piers  or  corner  posts,  barge-boards, 
and   hooded   doorways.      All   this  was   enriched  with 
delicate  window  tracery,  niches  filled  with   sculptured 
images,    hammer- beams    and    brackets,    corbels    and 
pendentives   carved,    painted,   and   gilded.      The  later 
examples  of  the  half-timbered  style  that  are  to  be  found 
most  commonly  perhaps  in  Yorkshire,  Cheshire,  Derby- 
shire, Worcestershire,  Shropshire,  and  Suffolk  are  still 
evidence  of  every  conceivable  diversity  of  architectural 
ornament  and  small  figure  sculpture.     In  some  cases 
they  show  the  preservation  to  a  late  period  of  Gothic 
types  and  feeling.     Others  might  be  cited,  but  we  may 
take,    as    one   example,   a    seventeenth-century   house 
in  the  Market  Square,  Shrewsbury,  which  is  entirely 
Gothic,  the  barge-boards  carved  with  vine-leaf  and  fruit, 
and  scrolls  of  branch  and  leaf  work.     Or,  for  another 
the  "  Feathers  "  inn  at  Ludlow.    Earlier  ones  still  exist, 
even    in    London :    for  instance,  the   fifteenth-century 
building  in  Cloth-fair,  Smithfield — now  the  "  Old  Dick 
Whittington  "  public-house — has  some  grotesque  gar- 
goyles still  on  the  walls. 

As  in  the  case  of  mediaeval  screens,  we  have  little 
knowledge  of  the  actual  carvers  of  this  open-air  de- 
corative work,  which  is  sometimes  of  the  date  of  the 
screens,  and  of  that  for  interior  construction  :  so  strong, 
so  elegant,  and  yet  so  different  in  style  and  execu- 
tion from  the  church  work.  That  a  certain  amount  is 
due  to  the  foreigner — to  the  Italians  brought  over  with 
410 


CONCLUSION 

Torregiano,  and,  in  the  succeeding  reigns,  to  the 
German  and  Flemish  workmen  and  to  imported  goods, 
we  know.  We  do  not  forget  such  examples  as  the 
Holbein  chimney-piece  of  Reigate  Priory,  or  Nonsuch 
House  as  it  was,  from  which  the  Reigate  chimney-piece 
came.  Yet  it  is  not  to  be  too  readily  assumed  that  the 
uncouth  is  invariably  of  native,  the  refined  and  graceful 
of  exotic  origin.  The  stalls  of  Jesus  College,  Cambridge 
(1496-1506),  of  King's  College  chapel  (1509-1528),  or 
the  panels  of  Queen's  College  (153 1),  all  within  the 
same  university,  are  evidence  of  fine  English  work, 
even  if  the  designs  may  have  been  inspired  from  Italy. 

The  field  is  scarcely  less  extensive  in  post-Re- 
formation church  wood  sculpture  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries.  Such  churches  as  Croscombe 
alone  are  mines  for  illustration,  and  without  pretending 
even  summarily  to  cover  the  whole  subject,  it  will  suffice 
to  call  attention  to  that  which  is  involved  in  the  number- 
less examples  of  screens,  bench-ends,  and  pews.  Some 
of  the  latter  —  known  as  squires'  pews  —  are  huge 
enclosures  in  themselves,  covered  with  characteristic 
carved  work.  Amongst  them  there  are,  for  instance, 
those  at  Stokesay  (Salop),  Whalley  (Lanes.),  Herriard 
(Hants),  the  Bluett  pew  at  Holcombe  Rogus,  the  Drop- 
more  pew  at  Burnham,  and — to  take  but  one  more — 
the  superb  work  at  Lavenham,  Suffolk. 

In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  there  must 
have  been  enormous  activity  in  the  use  of  carved  wood 
for  interior  decoration.  Whole  forests  of  oak  would 
have  been  required  to  supply  even  one  great  house, 
such  as  Aldermaston  or  Haddon  Hall.  A  bare  list  of 
notable  country-houses  abounding  in  carved  woodwork 
would  fill,  with  their  names  alone,  several  pages.  Many 
prominent  examples  occur  at  once  to  the  mind.  First 
of  all  there  is  Abington  Hall,  inexhaustible  in  interest, 
with  its  panels,  often  of  the  misericord  style,  the  spoil, 
no  doubt,   of  churches.     Then  there  are  Aldermaston 

411 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Court  (Berks)  and  its  noble  stairway,  with  much  evi- 
dence in  its  figure-work  that  English  sculpture  was  not, 
at  times,  behind  the  rest  of  the  world  in  delicacy  of 
treatment,  knowledge  of  anatomy,  treatment  of  drapery, 
and  power  of  execution.  Or,  as  at  Castle  Ashby 
(Northants),  again  a  remarkable  staircase  of  the  early 
seventeenth  century,  a  most  original  treatment  of  tree- 
trunks  intertwined  with  ivy,  trailing  vines,  and  other 
vegetation.  Then,  we  have  Burghley,  built  and  orna- 
mented by  Germans  (i 577-1 587)  yet  of  English 
inspiration,  for  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  prototype 
on  the  Continent,  or  anything  like  it.  And,  once  more, 
Bradfield  (Devon),  where  there  is  no  end  of  quaint 
Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  figure-work,  in  which  the 
grotesque  runs  riot :  barbaric,  perhaps,  but  full  of 
interest  for  costumes,  and  illustrative  of  the  magnifi- 
cence of  a  Tudor  mansion.  Again,  we  have  Layer 
Marney  and  its  linen  pattern  panels,  Godinton,  Burton 
Agnes,  Longleat,  Hardwicke  Hall,  Haddon  Hall — the 
list  is  endless.  All  abound  in  panellings  and  majestic 
figure-work,  especially  in  the  characteristic  giant  ter- 
minal figures  and  other  caryatid  monsters  so  frequently 
used  as  jambs  for  the  chimney-pieces.  Uncouth  though 
the  latter  may  be — perhaps  no  better  art  sometimes  than 
that  of  the  sculptor  of  ships'  figure-heads  or  of  the  Gog 
and  Magog  type — still,  however  open  to  criticism,  they 
look  well  enough  in  the  general  scheme  of  decora- 
tion, and  we  cannot  help  but  feel  a  national  pride 
in  it  all.  As  an  example  of  the  houses  of  wealthy  city 
merchants — numbers  of  which  still  exist  in  such  towns 
as  Exeter — the  South  Kensington  Museum  is  able  to 
show  a  complete  room  from  the  latter  place. 

An  epitome  of  some  of  the  most  salient  points  in 
the  history  of  English  wood  sculpture  of  the  periods 
now  in  question  could  not,  of  course,  avoid  some  men- 
tion of  Grinling  Gibbons,  upon  whom  so  much  extra- 
vagant praise  has  been  lavished,  of  Gibber,  of  Marot,  of 
412 


CONCLUSION 

Inigo  Jones  and  of  the  influence  of  Sir  Christopher 
Wren.  But  there  is  no  place  here  to  discuss  the 
question  of  the  position  of  Gibbons  as  a  sculptor  or 
of  his  art  as  a  decorator.  That  the  latter  is  highly 
decorative  and  pleasing  from  a  certain  point  of  view  it 
would  be  impossible  to  deny,  nor  that  amongst  the 
profusion  of  work  attributed  to  Gibbons  there  is  to  be 
found  both  the  mediocre  and  the  exceptionally  fine.  We 
may  class  among  the  very  best  such  an  example  as  the 
decoration  over  the  dining-room  mantelpiece  at  Keele 
Hall.  Charming  in  their  simplicity  are  the  trails  of 
foliage,  the  pendent  drapery  tasselled  and  looped,  the 
floral  frame  of  the  portrait  in  the  centre  panel.  We 
need  not  cavil  at  the  imitative  art.  All  is  in  harmony 
with  the  tone  and  details  of  the  white  marble  mantel- 
piece, with  the  added  ornaments  which  stand  on  it,  and 
with  the  colouring  of  the  adjacent  panels.  That  is  the 
whole  secret  of  this  style.  Gibbons  or  some  other  may 
supply  lengths  of  mechanically-cut  work,  more  or  less 
faithful,  clever,  admirable  imitations  of  animal  or  vege- 
table life :  not  a  little  of  the  art  lies  in  the  man  who 
selects  and  applies  them,  and  who  has  studied  the  effects 
of  light  which  their  position  and  environments  require. 
It  is  curious  to  observe  that  the  art  of  Grinling  Gibbons 
is  altogether  ignored  by  foreign  critics.  I  know  no 
reference  to  it  whatever. 

No  more  has  been  intended  or  could  have  been 
done  within  the  limits  of  a  short  chapter  than  to  give 
some  general  indication  of  the  wealth  of  material  which 
still  awaits  the  student.  Much  more  remains  to  be 
said  in  order  even  briefly  to  summarize  the  extensive 
range  which  the  story  of  wood  sculpture  covers  from 
the  time  of  the  triumph  of  the  Renaissance  to  our  own 
day.  All  with  which  we  may  connect  it  may  not  be  art 
of  the  purest  and  highest  kind  perhaps,  but  all  presents 
points  of  historical  interest  at  least,  and  some  may  lay 
claim    to    distinction    equal    to   any   other   sculpture. 

413 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

Amongst  the  latter  few  things  in  decorative  furniture 
stand  out  more  prominently  than  the  smaller  work, 
such  as  the  framings  of  mirrors,  and  other  things  of 
the  kind,  in  which  boxwood,  pearwood,  and  similar  soft 
woods  were  used.  The  small  nude  figure-work  on  such 
an  example,  for  instance,  as  the  mirror  frame  in  the 
Kensington  Museum  (No.  1605  '55) — Flemish  of  the  six- 
teenth century — is  admirable.  So,  too,  are  such  mirror 
frames  as  the  Flemish  ones,  in  the  style  of  the  northern 
French  schools,  with  their  rich  decoration  of  strapwork, 
masks,  and  foliage,  enclosing  medallions  with  figures 
and  scriptural  subjects,  of  which  there  are  fine  examples 
in  the  Louvre  and  Munich  Museums,  and,  formerly,  in 
the  Spitzer  collection.  So,  again,  musical  instruments 
form  a  class  apart,  of  which  it  would  be  no  exaggeration 
to  say  specimens  exist  than  which  wood-carving  of  the 
best  Renaissance  times  offers  no  more  masterly  work. 
We  may  take,  amongst  many,  the  lovely  Pandurina, 
in  beech  or  pearwood,  at  South  Kensington,  the  back 
carved  with  a  group  of  Juno,  Diana  and  Venus,  and 
with  delicate  tendril  and  strapwork.  It  is  French  of 
the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Or,  again, 
for  seventeenth-century  German  work,  the  finely  carved 
head  in  boxwood  of  a  viola  di  bardone.  Nor  could  we 
neglect  the  many  charming  lutes — amongst  them  that 
known  as  Queen  Elizabeth's  at  Helmingham — of  which 
so  many  were  exhibited  in  the  historic  Loan  Collection 
of  the  Inventions  Exhibition  in  1885.  Most  interesting 
of  all,  to  Englishmen,  is  the  beautiful  boxwood  violin, 
completely  covered  with  woodland  scenes  and  figures, 
deeply  carved,  in  the  collection  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick. 
This  also  is  English  work  of  about  1580,  and  said  to 
have  been  Oueen  Elizabeth's. 

Up  to  at  least  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century — 

that  is  to  say,  before  the  advent  of  utilitarian  times,  and 

when  life  proceeded  more  leisurely  and  there  was  more 

time  to  spare,  people  were  fond  of  decorating  the  most 

414 


CONCLUSION 

ordinary  things  in  common  use.  Without  alkiding  even 
to  such  fine  art  as,  for  instance,  an  Italian  knife-case  at 
South  Kensington,  dated  1564,  there  are  innumerable 
examples  which  would  call  for  notice  :  not  all  great  art, 
it  may  be,  but  interesting  in  the  history  of  styles  trans- 
mitted from  generation  to  generation.  There  are  toilet 
and  table  articles  of  all  descriptions — combs,  spindles, 
snuff-boxes,  tobacco  -  graters,  stick  -  handles,  pastry 
moulds,  fools'  baubles,  the  curious  Flemish  *  Nativity  ' 
cribs  known  as  Repos  de  Jdsus  of  the  fifteenth  century 
(see  Niffle-Anciaux  in  Bibliography),  knife-handles, 
and  a  host  of  greater  and  lesser  things.  For  knife- 
handles  and  the  like  it  is  probable  that  such  artists  as 
Fletner  in  Germany  or  Theodore  de  Bry  in  France 
made  models  for  reproduction  by  the  goldsmiths. 
Even  the  very  tools  the  carpenter  uses  in  his  work — his 
planes,  chisel-heads  or  mallets — were  carved,  sometimes 
with  no  mean'  talent.  And  indeed  we  could  not  leave 
out  of  consideration  the  elaborate  figure  and  other 
carved  ornament  of  the  state  carriages,  sedan-chairs, 
and  sledges  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Until  comparatively  recent  times  woodwork  gene- 
rally appears  to  have  suffered  from  unmerited  neglect. 
But  with  the  present  rage  for  every  description  of  fine 
art  it  is  rapidly  conquering  its  proper  position.  Any 
scrap  of  old  panelling — even  if  quite  undecorated — 
carved  chests,  and,  above  all,  figures,  are  eagerly  sought 
after  and  acquired  at  almost  extravagant  prices.  Really 
fine  examples  of  boxwoods  will  certainly  become  more 
and  more  rare  and  desirable,  and  perhaps  realize  as 
much  as  the  rarest  of  mediaeval  ivories.  Forgeries  of 
wood-carving  of  the  best  styles  and  periods  are  not  so 
common  as  is  usually  imagined.  They  are  indeed 
beyond  the  capability,  so  far,  of  those  who  supply  the 
Wardour  Street  type.  On  the  other  hand — from  early 
neglect — we  find  but  too  often  that  pieces  are  put 
together  and  made  up  in  the  most  incongruous  fashion, 

415 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 

The  object  of  this  book  has  been  to  give  some  idea, 
to  those  hitherto  uninstructed  in  the  subject,  of  what  is 
best  worth  study  and  appreciation  in  the  remains  of 
wood  sculpture  still  existing,  which  is  assuredly  entitled 
to  hold  no  mean  position  in  the  history  of  the  arts. 


416 


INDEX 


PAGE  I 

Abruzzi,  the,  sculpture  in,  .         .  245 
Adam  and  Eve,  the,  at  Basel,        .  158 

at  Gotha,     .         .         .153 

at  S.  Kensington,  98,  107, 

121 
at  Vienna, 


Aix,  doors  of  cathedral, 
Amiens,  Beau-Dieu  of, 

choir,  . 

Angel  choir,  Lincoln,   . 
Angels, 

panels  in  Louvre, 


.   154 
53.  403 

•  lil^ 
321-331 

.     26 
.  291 

•  47 
80,  1 16,  306 


Anna  selbdritt  groups, 
Annunciation  figures,  Italian — 

Asciano,  .  .  .  '253 
Berlin,  .         .         .         .255 

Cluny  museum,  .  .  .  252 
San  Gemignano,  .  .  .  254 
Kensington  museum,  .  .  253 
Louvre,         ....  253 

Lyon, 250 

Montalcino,  .  .  .  .254 
Orvieto,         .         .  .         .252 

Pescia,  .         .         .         .253 

Pisa,  ....  248,  251 
Annunciation  groups,  Italian,  246-256 
Armoire  of  Obazine,     .         .        22,46 


Armstrong,  Clement,  treatise  by,  .   189 
Artists'  names — 

Abondi,  A.,  .         .         .  .178 

Agata,  F.  da  Sant',        .  .143 

Angelo,  M.,  51,  168,  203,  240,  244 

Avernier,  A.,          .         .  324,  328 

Baccio  da  Montelupo,  .  .  244 

Bachelier,     .         .     406,  407,  408 

Baerze,  J.  de,        .         .  50,  72 

Baldung,  H.,          .         .  .123 

Barili,  ....  244,  405 

Beaugrant,  G.  de,          .  .58 

Beauneveu,  A.,      .         .  .     26            Dello  Delli, 

2  D 


Artists'  names — continued. 
Bccerra, 
Behan, 
Berain,  J.,     . 
Berghem,  L.  van, 
Berruguete,  I.,       .     199 
Blondeel,  L., 
Bogaert, 
Boldu, 

Bologna,  G.  da 
Bolz,  M., 
Borgona, 
Borremann,  J., 
Boulin,  A.,    .         .     32 
Boulle, 

Broederlam,  M., 
Briiggeniann,  H., 
Brun,  C.  le,  . 
Brunelleschi,   162,  216, 

Burgkmair,    . 

Burlenghi,  A., 

Caflfieri,  P.,    . 

Cano,  A.,      .     192,  211, 

Caradosso,  II., 

Churriguera,  G-,    . 

Gibber, 

Civitali, 

Clerc,  L.  le, . 

Colombe,  M., 

Connixloo,  J.  van, 

Cozzarelli, 

Cranach,  L., 

Crosse, 

Culmbach,  H., 

Dachauer, 

Dancart, 

Daucher,  H.,  88,  92,  93, 


277,  365 
88,93 

•  409 

•  153 

278,  365 

•  58 

•  135 
.   162 

•  147 

•  97 

•  203 

70.  135 

,  328,  329 

.  408 

.     50 

•  136 

■  409 

223,  244, 

266 

.     88 

.  261 

•  409 
276,  277 
163,  244 
197,  206 

.  412 
.  244 

•  329 
47.405 

•  72 

•  244 

•  153 
380,  391 
165,  177 

.   168 

•  365 
124,  165, 

176,177 
.   196 

17 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 


Artists'  names — continued. 

Devis,  .         .         .         .         -72 

Dollinger,  H.,        .         .         .178 

Donatello,  51,  120,  162,  216,  223, 

226,  233,  244,  256,  266 

Doncel,         ....  365 

Du  Cerceau,  .      32,  406,  407 

Diirer,  A.,  88,  119,  122,  133,  141, 

151.  i53»  154,  161,  168,  170, 

181 

Egas,  E.  de,  .         .    197,  211 

Erhart,  .         .         .         .96 

Eyck,  J.  van,  50,  56,  6x,  65,  88, 

122,  133,  265 

Ferrucci, 


.   244 
141,  165,  168,  415 

•  257 
.   201 

.     47 
.   163 

.    165 

.   276 

162,  25s 

.   162 

34,  409,  412,  413 

•  257 
218,  237,  244 

.  409 

.  .     58 

32,  406,  407 

.  408 

.  211 

97 


Fletner, 
Fonte,  J.  della, 
Forment,  D., 
Fouquet,  J., 
Francia, 
Fugger,  J.,    . 
Garcia,  G.,    . 
Ghiberti, 
Ghirlandajo, . 
Gibbons,  G., 
Giorgio,  F.  di, 
Giotto, 
Girardon, 
Glosencamp,  H., 
Goujon,  J.,    . 
Gouthiere,     . 
Gumiel,  P.,  . 
Hagenfurter,  V., 

Haguenauer,  F.,  88,  93,  157,  165, 
167,  168,  169,  171 


Hennequin,  . 
Herlin,  F.,    . 
Hernandez,  G., 
Holbein, 
Huet,  A., 
Janni,   . 

Jean  le  Scelleur, 
Juni,  J.  de,   . 
Kels,  H.,       . 
Krafft,  A.,     . 


•  50 

•  137 
277,278,  365 

•  93,  169 

•  324,  328 

•  259 

•  30 

•  277,365 
165,  168,  173 

91,99,  107,  131 


Krug,  L,  .  123,  165,  168,  177 
Lendenstreich,  V.,  .  .  86 
Lescot,  P.,  .  .  32,  406,  407 
Lochner,  S.,  ...     89 

Loedewick,   .         .         .         •   135 
418 


PAGE 

Artists'  names — continued. 

Mditre  des  Moulins,  .  •  1 1 5 
Majano,  B.  da,  120,  244,  246,  266 
Maier,  V.,  .  .  .  '177 
Margaritone,  .         .         .  246 

Marot,  D.,  .  .  .  .412 
Marville,  J.  de,  .  .  .  50 
Meit,  C.,80,  91,  99,  121,  123,  142, 

150 


Memling, 
Mena,  P.  da, 
Metz,  H.,      . 
Meurisse,  P., 
Michelozzo,  . 
Montafiez,     . 
Mosselmen,  P., 
Mull,  L.,       . 
Multscher,  H., 
Murillo, 
Neroccio, 
Niccola,  D.  di, 
Nufiez, 
Nuto,  N.  di, 
Orcagna, 
Orley,  B.  van, 
Orme,  P.  de  1', 
Ottivetono,  . 
Pacheco, 
Pacher,  M.,  . 
Pastorini, 
Petercels, 
Pilon,  G., 
Pisanello, 
Pisano,  A.,    . 

G.,        . 

Niccola, 

Nino, 


61,88 

201,  211,  276 

97 

329 

244 

201,  276,  277 

54 

97 

99.  128,  129 

192,  276 

•  244 

•  404 
.  276 

218,  221 

•  255 

•  135 
2,  406,  407 

.  260 
276,  277 
68,  125,  126,  128 
.   162 

•  71 
,  406,  407 

.  162 

•  235 

235,  243,  247 
.51,236,242 

235,  243,  245,  247, 
248,  255,  266 

•  97 
329 


Polsterer,  P., 
Quentin,  G., 

Quercia,  J.  della,  204,   235,   237, 
244,257,266,306 
Raimondi,  M.  A.,  .         -179 

Reinhart,  H.,         .         .         -177 
Riemenschneider,  T.  (and  see 
under  name),  65,  80,  88,  91,  93, 

94,  97,99,  131 
Riesener,  ....  408 
Risueno,  .  .  .  .277 
Rodin,  ....  170 


INDEX 


Artists'  names — continued. 

Roentgen,     ....  408 

Rogel, 197 

Roldan,         .         .         .         .276 

Sambin,  H., .         .    405,  406,  407 

Schaufelein,  .         .         .141 

Schongauer,  86,  88,  93,  no,  119 

Schwarz,  H.,  95,  99,  146,  164,  165, 

168, 169,  181 

Schweiger,  G.,       .         .         -92 

Settignano,  D.  da,  .         .  244 

Sluter,  Claus,         .         .        26, 45 

Sperandio,     .         .         .         .162 

Stoss,  V.(and  see  under  name), 

79.  90.  91.  94.  99.  102-106,  125, 

131,  224,  259 

Syrlin,  G.,     .         .         .    116,333 

Trupin,  J.,    .         .         .    325,328 

Unghero,      ....  244 

Valenciennes,  J.  de,      .         -58 

Vecchietta,  II.,      .         .         .   244 

Velasco,  D.,  .         .         -194 

Vellano,        .         .         .         .144 

Verrocchio,  ....  244 

Vigarny,  P.,  .         .198,  365 

Vischer,  P.,  80,  99,  107,  131,  141, 

163,  259 

Weiss,  M.,    .         .         .         -97 

Weyden,   R.  van  der,  50,  61,  65, 

73.  88,  137 

Wohlgemut,    .   80,  88,  93,  95,  97, 

112,  127,  161,  178 

Wren,  Sir  C,         .         .         .35 

Wydyz,  H.,     .     99,124,142,159 

Arts,  mediaeval,  not  specialized,     .     24 

Ashmolean  museum,  the    bronze 

Hercules  in,      .         .         .         .   144 
Auch,  choir  of,     .         .         .    334,  407 
Augsburg,    a    boxwood    carvings 
centre,      .....   145 

figures  by  Multscher  at,        .   129 

figures  at,  illustrated,    .         .138 

Autun,  figures  in  museum  at,        .     48 
Auvergne,  school  of,     .         .         .407 


Baroque,  the,      .         .         .      60,  197 
Basel  museum,  Adam  and  Eve,  the,  158 

other  figures  in,  .   159 

Bedsteads,  mediaeval,   .         .         -52 


Bench-ends — 

Abbotsham,  . 

Ashcombe,    . 

Kilkhampton, 

Launcells, 

North  Cray,  . 

Poughill, 

Warkleigh,  . 
Benedictine  order, 
Berlin  museums,  objects  in — 

Annunciation  group, 

Boxwoods,    . 

Bust  by  Montaiiez, 

Madonna  by  Giov.  Pisano,    . 

Medallions,  .         .         .         . 

Pearwood   St.    John    Baptist 
head,         .         .         .         . 

Portrait  busts, 
Bernard,  St.,         .         .         .         . 
his  diatribe. 


370 
392 
370 
371 
372 
370 
392 
28,37 


•   255 

145.  147 
213 

235 
175 

147 
156 

37 

38 

203 

341 
92 


by 


147. 


Berruguete,  his  art. 

Bestiaries,    .... 

Blasius,    Prof.,    his   drawings 
Diirer,      .... 

Blutenberg,  figures  at,  . 

Bode,  Dr.,    .         .       vii. 

Bond,  B.,     . 

F.,       .         . 

Bonnaffe,    M.,    identifies   Wallace 
Hercules,  .... 

Borremann,  J.,  his  retables,  . 

Borromeo,  St.  Charles, 

Bossy  collection,  Madonnas  in,   65,  233 

Boxwood,     .         .         ,         .         .33 

carving  in,   .         .         .     140-160 

models  in,  used  for  patterns,   141 

Hercules  in  Wallace  collec- 
tion, ....     142-144 

figures  of  Adam  and  Eve,  153,154, 

158 
figure  of  Jamnitzer,       .         -159 


85,  129 
155.  213 
396,  400 
396 


143 

70 

59 


British  Museum,  objects  in — 

Hercules  and  AntKus,  .         .   1 60 

Lot  and  his  daughters  (panel),   1 69 

Medallions,  .       172,  175,  178 

Microscopic  carvings,    .         .184 

Portrait  busts,  152,  155,  157 

Brou,  monument  at,     .         .         -149 

Bruges,  Palais  de  Justice,  .     58 

Town  Hall,  .         .         .58 

419 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 


PAGE 

Buckfast  Abbey,  .  .  .  -39° 
Burgos,  crucifix  at,  .  .  .212 
Burgundy,  court  of,  .  26,  45,  50,  148 
Burlington   Fine  Arts  Club,   123,   169 

1S2 
Byzantine  influences,    .         .         -37 


Calcar,  school  of,       .         .      87,  135 

Canons  of  proportion  in  figures,    .   132 
Caricature  in  Church  art,      .    345 
Carriages,  state,   . 
Cast   of  H.   Briiggemann's  altar- 
piece, 
Champnol,  chartreuse  of, 
Chancel  screens, . 


Atherington,  .     3: 

Banwell, 

Bovey  Tracey, 

Bradninch,  . 

Bridford,      . 

Brushford,    . 

Chulmleigh, 

Colebrook,   . 

Coleridge,     . 

Fitzhead, 

Hartland,     . 

High  Ham, 

Holbeton,    . 

Kentisbeare, 

Kenton, 

Lapford, 

Littleham,    . 

Lustleigh,     . 

Plymtree,     . 

Stoke-in-Teignhead, 

Stratton, 
Chests  and  coffers, 
Choirs  and  choir  stalls, 

early  history  of, 

stall,  the  term, 

how  assigned, 

early  mention  of, 

their  parts,  319, 


346 
415 

i-;6 


.     50 

373-401 

,  392,  398 

396 


canopy  of  dais. 


Churchwardens'  accounts,    . 
Churrigueresque, 
Cluny  museum,  objects  in — 
Annunciation  figures,    . 

420 


398 
398 
398 
392 
396 
392 
392 
396 
396 
396 
396 
396 
398 
396 
39S 
395 
396 
382 

399 
292-299 

313-336 

•  314 

•  316 
317 
318 
520, 
352 

•  319 
378,  383 

.   198 

•  252 


Cluny  museum — continued. 

Chest,  fourteenth  century,     .  296 

Flemish  Madonna,        .         .     65 

Twelfth-century  crucifix,        .   220 

Cologne,  painting,  school  of,        .     88 

Colouring  of  sculpture,  13,  66,    115, 

134.  137.  250,  261-278 

methods   and  colours 

used,         .         .         .    264,  265,  266 

universal  in  early  and 

mediaeval  times,        .         .         .  264 
by  the  Flemish  primi- 
tives,       .         .         .         .65,  265 

Devonshire     screen- 
work,        .         .         .268,  398,  399 

in  Germany,        .         .   269 

the    Niirnberg    Ma- 
donna,    .....  269 

in  England,         .    270,271 

Theophilus,  treatise  by,     1 3, 

273 

in  Italy,       .         .         .  273 

in  Spain,     .         .     274-278 

Commission,   Royal,  on  decay  of 

wood-carvings,  .         .         -35 

Copying  from  paintings,  engrav- 
ings, etc.,  .     86,  88,  89,  90,  92,  119 
Corporations,  statutes  of,      .         .     34 
Costume,  anachronisms  in  medi- 

ceval  art,  .  .  ,  .  72,  138 
Country  houses,  English,  .  409-414 
Abington  Hall,  .  .  .411 
Aldermaston  Court,  .  .411 
Bradfield,  .  .  .  .412 
Burghley,  .  .  .  .412 
Burton  Agnes,  .  .  .412 
Castle  Ashby,  .  .  .412 
Godinton,  .  .  .  .412 
Haddon  Hall,  .  .  .411 
Hardwicke  Hall,  .  .  .412 
Keele  Hall,  ....  413 
Layer  Marney,  .  .  .412 
Longleat,  .  .  .  .412 
Courajod,  L.,  on  a  twelfth-century 

crucifix,  .         .         .         .    217,  219 
Crucifixes  and  Madonna  figures,  214- 

238 
Crucifixes — 

Anderlecht,  at,      .         .         .221 
Byzantine  formula,        .     217-219 


INDEX 


Crucifixes — continuid. 

Cicognara,  reference  to,  .  223 
Clermont  Ferrand,  at,  .  .220 
Donatello'sand  Brunellesclii's, 

222,  223 

German,       ....  224 

Italian,  .221,  222 

Romanesque,        .         .     215-217 

Veit  Stoss',  .         .         .         -105 

Volterra,    Deposition    group 

at,    .  .         .         .221 

Crusades  and  Syria,      .         .         -37 

Cuen^a,  pinewood  of,  .         .         .     32 

Cuthbert,  St.,  coffin  of,  20 


Daucher,  H.  (see  under  Artists' 
names) — 

Mr.  S.  M.  Peartree  on,  .   180 

Destructions,     iconoclastic     and 
Mother,       .         .         59.95.378,383 
Dijon,  doors  at,  .         .         .         .  407 
DonatcUo     (see     under     Artists' 
names) — 

his  St.  John  Baptist,      .  256 

his  crucifix,  ....  222 
his  Magdalen,  .  .  .256 
and  Brunelleschi,  .         .223 

Doors,  Italian,  twelfth-century,     .  241 
Downside,  abbey,  coloured  sculp- 
ture at,     .         .         .         .         .269 
Doivnsid(  Revirui,         .         .         .318 
Drapery,  system  of  angular  folds,  65, 

81,  93,  113 
Diirer,  A.  (see  under  Artists'  names) — 
his  cipher,    .         ,         .  90,  91,  92 
statuette  attributed  to,  .         .     90 
his  influence,        .         .  91 

and  the  'AH  Saints '  picture 

frame,       .         .         .         -91 
a  sculptor  (?)         .         .         .178 


Effigies,  sepulchral,  .        .  299-306 
Egypt,    ancient,    wood    sculpture 

in,    .         .         .         .         .  .6-17 

England,  foreign  artists  in,  .  .     54 

England,  wood  sculpture  in,  279-312 

Alabaster  work,     .  .   284 

Angel  figures,                  .  .291 

2  0  2 


England,  wood  sculpture  in — cofif. 

Anna  selhdritt  group,     .  .   306 

Apostle  figures,  .  .  .  307 
Carvers'  names,    .  309-3 1 ' 

Character  of  English  work,  282 
Chests  and  coffers,  .  292-299 
Destructions  and  iconoclasm,  283, 
287,  288,  289 
Figures   on  bench-ends   and 

poppy-heads,  .  .  .  284 
Foreign  work  in,  .  .  281,282 
Lecterns,  ....  308 
Lincoln  Cathedral,  fine  work 

in, 286 

Linen  pattern,  .  .  .  297 
Madonna  statuette,  .  .  308 
Mildenhall,  fine  work  at,  .  372 
Panel,  thirteenth-century,  .  307 
Panelling,  ....  298 
Penury  of  early  examples,  .  3 1 
Pieta  of  Battlefield,  .  .  283 
Roofs  and  bosses,  .         .290 

Saddle-cantle,  .  .  .  309 
Scarcity,  reasons  of,  .  .  280 
Sepulchral  effigies,  .  299-306 
Statue,  St.  Catherine,  .  372 

Viergf.  ouvrante  of  Boulton,  .  283 
Eng/tsche  Gruss,  the,  by  Veit  Stoss,  1 04 
Estofado,  ....  193, 275 
Eton  College,  Egyptian  figure  at, .     14 


Fabriczv,    ....      vii,  147 
Flanders,  art  in,  .         .         .26,  53-55 

political  influences  on  its  art,     53 

Fleming,  the  ubiquitous,      .        26,  54 
Fletner,    or    Flotner   (see   under 

Artists'  names). 
Foliage  in  sculpture,  41,  384-3S9,  397- 

399 
Forment,  Damian,  his  art,  .  .  202 
France,  English  occupation  of,      .     49 

penury  of  early  examples,     .     29 

schools  of  wood-carving,   32,  407 

wood    sculpture    in    twelfth 

century, 45 

Franconian  schools  of  wood-carv- 
ing, .         .         .         .         .84 
French  and  Flemish  wood  sculp- 
I      ture  compared,  56,  57 

421 


WOOD   SCULPTURE 


Fryer,  A.  C,         .         .                  .  300 

Furniture,  domestic,  mediieval,     .  52 

sixteenth    and    seventeenth 

centuries,          ....  408 


Gautier,  Th.,     .         .         .    209,  365 

German  wood  sculpture — 

Characteristics  of  figure  work,  81 
Choir  work, .  .  .  '  33^ 
Copying  from  paintings,  etc.,  86, 
88,  92,  119 
Early  remains  scarce,  .  .  76 
Flourishing  period,  the,  .  75 
Franconian  schools,  .  83,  84 
General  remarks  on,  .  78,  79 
Identification     with      artists 

difficult,  .  .  .  81,  94 
Influences  affecting,  .  -75 
Little  noticed  till  recently,  99,  121 
Long  faithful  to  Gothic,  .  76 
Medallions  (see  under). 
Naturalism  in,  .  .  -76 
Relationship  with  stone  sculp- 
ture, .  .  .  -95 
Schools  of,     79,  83,  87,  125, 135, 

Similarity  of  style  and  tech- 
nique, .  .  .  .95 
Suabian  schools,  .  .  -83 
Two  great  groups,  .  77, 82 
Wander-years,  artists',  .  .82 
"Wanting  in  originality,  .  .  88 
Woods  used,  .  .  80, 85 
Gotha  museum,  the,   Adam  and 

Eve  in,  ....  151-153 
Grohman,  Baillie,  .  .  52, 85 
Guild  marks,  .  69,  70,  74 
Guilds,  quattior  Coronati,  .  .  69 
regulations  of,  38,  41,  42,  44,  69 


Hap.ich,  G.,  on   German  medal- 


Hispano-Moresque, 
Hollinshed,  chronicles, 
Honestone  reliefs, 
Hucher^  or  huchicr. 


PAGE 
194,  197 

•  34 
.  163 
.     42 


Imagines  de  vestir,        .         .         .276 
Italian  wood  sculpture  of  the  tre- 
cento and  quatrocento,     .     239-260 

Annunciation  figures,  224, 

241,  246 

Pisa,   Museo  Civico,  248, 

250,251,  253 
Renaissance,  the,  242,  245 


Jamnitzer,  boxwood  figure  of,  . 
Jones,  Owen,  .  .  .  . 
Jouee,  the  term,  .  .  .  . 
Judith,  alabaster,  the,  by  Meit, 


KOECHLIN,  M., 


159 
261 

319 
306 


lions. 

vii,  169 

Haguenauer,  art  of. 

•     175.176 

Hartshorne,  A.,  . 

•   305 

Hawker,  R.  S.,     . 

.   401 

Hercules,  the,  in   Wallace 

coUec- 

tion, 

.     142-144 

Hieratism,   . 

.      6,  9,  23 

422 

Laearte  on  the  Louvre  M  and 

F,  .         .         . 
*  Lapidaries,' 
Lecterns,     . 
Leon,  stall-work  at, 
Lincoln  Cathedral, 
Linen  pattern. 
Louvre,  museum,  objects  in — 
Crucifix  figures,  twelfth  cen- 
tury, .         .     217,219, 
Eve,  statue,  polychromed 
M  and  F,  letters  carved. 
Madonna  by  J.  della  Quercia, 
of  Bossy  collection. 


191 

34» 
308 
199 
286 
297 


220 
124 
190 
235 

•  233 
.  181 
.  163 

87.  135 
.  414 

•  414 
Lyon,  Annunciation  figures  at,     .  250 


Medallions, 

Pieta  by  Francia, . 
Liibeck, 

Lute,  Queen  Elizabeth's, 
the  Helmingham, 


M  and  F,  carved  letters, 
Maclou,  St.,  doors  of,  . 
Madonnas — 

Byzantine  formula, 


190 
407 

335 


INDEX 


Madonnas — continued 

Flemish,  thirteenth   century, 

229-232 
French,  .         .    226,  232 

Odigitria,  the,  .  .  225,  229 
Romanesque,  .  225,  228,  229 
Ruskin  on  a  French  type,     .   225, 

327.330 
Maeterlinck,  L.,  on  R.    van    der 

Weyden,  ....  65, 66 
Marburg,  statuette  of  St.  Barbara  at,  1 39 
Margaret,  regent  of  Netherlands,   149, 

155 
— —  her  tomb  at  Brou,  .  .150 
Marguerite  de  Valois,  .  .  -49 
Marguillier,  A.,  .  .  .  .127 
Maskell  collection,  211,  275,  306,  307, 

308 

Master  builder,  the,     .         .      24, 348 

Medallions,  .         .         .     161-182 

cast  and  struck,    .         .  .163 

Centres  of  the  art,         .         .164 

described,    ....   i6i 

German,       .         .         .     161-182 

Scarcity  of  signatures,  .         .   167 

Value  of,      .         .         .         .182 

Meit,    Conrad    (see    also    under 

Artists' names),         .         .     150-157 

Microscopic  sculpture,       140,  183-191 

Armstrong,  Clement,  tract  by,  189 


Flemish  or  German  ? 

Waddesdon  bequest, 

Wallace  collection, 
Mirror  frames,     . 
Misericords,  the  term. 

Costume, 

Domestic,    . 

Foliage  heads. 

Games, 

Grotesques, . 

Sacred  subjects,    . 

Saracens'  heads,    . 

Satirical, 

Supporters,  . 

Trades  and  occupations, 

Tufton  Street, 

Zodiacal  signs, 
Monastic  control  in  art, 
Morgan,  Pierpont,  collection — 

Medallions  in,      .     176,  179, 


i8» 
184 
184, 189 
414 
354 
359 
359 
360 

358 
358 
356 
357 
357 
361 

357 

363 

358 

38 

181 


355 


Morgan,  Pierpont, collection — continued 

Venus  panel  in,    .         .         .     92 

Mudejar  and  Hispano-Moresque,   194, 

197 
Multscher,  H.,  art  of,  .         .         .129 
Munich    museum,  portrait   busts, 
bo.xwood,  .     152,  157 

the  Niirnberg  Madonna  at,  .   133 

Miiseau,  the  term,  .  .  -319 
Musical  instruments,    .         .         -414 

Nefert,  princess,  statue  of,  .11 

Neusitz,  carvings  at,  .  .  .  86 
Nude,  mediaeval  avoidance  of,  -29 
Niirnberg,    its     association    with 

wood-carving,  .  -99 
Madonna,  the,  97,  107,  117,  129- 

135.  139 
Pieti  in  Jacobskirche,      131,  134 

Oak  and  walnut,  localities  where 

used,  .  .  .  .  -32 
Obazine,  armoire  at,  .  .  22,  46 
Orvieto,  Annunciation  figure  at,  .  252 
Ottivetono,  altarpiece  by,      .  .  260 

Packer,  M.,  art  of,      .        .     85,  127 

Parish  records,     .         .         .     378-381 

Fasos, 277 

Pausanias,  .....  4 
Peartree,  S.  M.,  on  Daucher,  .  180 
Petrie,  Flinders,  quotation  from,  16 
Pews,  squires',  .  .  .  .411 
Philip  the  Bold,  court  of,  .  45,  49 
Pisa,  Museo  Civico,  248,  250,  251,  253 
Plateresco,  .         .         .         -197 

Fottpee    and     Poppy  -  head,    the 

terms,  ....  351,  352 
Powell,  Mr.  D.,  .  .  .  .372 
Prehistoric  art  in  wood,  .  .  3 
'  Puits  de  Moise'  at  Dijon,  the,     .     51 


QuATREMfeRE  de  Quincy, 


166 


Radegonde,  St.,  reading-desk  of,      20 
Realism  in  art,  .    44,  55,  56,  57 

Reigate  Priory,  chimney-piece  at,    411 
Renaissance,  the,  .         .    242,  245 

art,  not  for  the  people,      36,  395 

itsefTectson  piety,  96, 147.395 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 


PAGE 

Renaissance,  French,  rise  of,         .     48 

post,  brief  remarks  on  wood 

sculpture  of,     .         .         .     402-415 

in  Italy,      .         .         .  403 

in  France,  .         .     405-409 

in  England,         .     409-413 

Repos  de  Jesus,     .         .         .         -415 
Retables,  .         .     61-74,  77,  87 

painted  by  great  masters,     .     64 

German   and   Flemish    dif- 
ferences, .         .         .         -67 

scenic-like,  .         .         .68 

in  North  Germany,      .         .     87 

architectural  framings  of,      .     96 

foliage  work,        .         .         .96 

Retables  and  altarpieces  at — 

Ambierle,  .  .  .  .66 
Bamberg,  .  .  .  .104 
Bopfingen,  .  .  .  -137 
Brussels,  museums  in,  67,  70,  72 
Claud  de  Villa,  of,  66,  71,  72 

Comte  de  Nahuys,  of,   .       66,  72 
Cracow,        .         .         .     79,  102 
no,  114,  115, 

I20j  122 

107 

137 
127 

135 

72 

138 

67,  71 

107,  119 

107,  117 

68,  126 
•  93 


Creglingen,  65,  80, 


Danzig, 
Dettwang,     . 
Dunkersbuhl, 
Gries,  . 
Giistrow, 
Haekendover, 
Heilbronn,  . 
Kensington,  museum  in, 
Miinnerstadt, 
Rothenburg,  83,  96, 

St.  Wolfgang,  at, 
Salzwedel,     . 
Schwabach, 
Schleswig,     . 
Suabian, 
Ulm,    . 
Zwickau, 
Riemenschneider,  T., 

Anna  sdbdritt  group,    . 
no,  112, 
Character  of  his  work, 
Civic  life, 

Creglingen  altarpiece,  . 
114, 

424 


95>  127 

•  136 
.   136 

•  137 
.   138 

80,  106, 

108-125 

98,  107, 

115,  122 

1 09-1 12 

.   108 

80,  1 10, 

115,  120 


Riemenschneider,  T. — continued. 

Dettwang  altarpiece,     .    107,  119 
Drapery,  style  of,  .         -113 

Eve,  of  the  Louvre,  no,  113,  122, 

124 
Eve  of  Wiirzburg,    no,  n3,  120, 

124 
Madonnas,  .  .  .  .112 
Magdalen  of  Miinnerstadt,  .  65, 
no,  112,  119,  120,  257 
Mark  or  cypher,  .  .  .121 
Miinnerstadt  altarpiece,  107,  119, 

120 
Portraits  of,  .         .         .108 

Rothenburg  altarpiece,        83,  96, 

n7 
Salzwedel  altarpiece,  .  .  93 
Shrine  in  Munich  museum,  118 
Stone  effigies  by,  98,  113,  117 
Tomb,  .         .         .         .121 

Twelve  apostles,   .         .    no,  117 
'  Vergiinglichkeit '  group,  8i,  107, 

123 
Wander-years,        .         .    109,  no 

Riemenschneider,  tendency  to  attri- 
bute works  to, 

Robinson,  Sir  J.  C,     .         .    192 

Roch,  St.,  statue  at  Florence,    80 

Rodin,         .... 

Romances,  mediaeval, 

Romanesque  wood  sculpture. 

Rood,  the,  .... 

Rood  figures,  remains  of — 
Cartrael  Fel, 
Causton, 
Cullompton, 
Etchingham, 
Gwerful  Goch, 
Kemeys  Inferior,  . 
Lapford, 
Mochdree,    . 

Rood-screens, 

Rosenheim,  M 
lection,    . 

Rosenkrdnze, 

Rothschild  bequest,     .         .      88 

Rottweil,  figures  by  Multscher  at, 

Rouen,  doors  of  cathedral,  . 

doors  of  St.  Maclou, 

stalls,  ...     54 


medallions  in  col- 
.    176 


97 
237 
258 

44 

348 

21 

375 

376 
378 
377 
378 
376 
377 
378 
377 
373 

182 

184 
128 

S3 

407 

329 


INDEX 


Royal    Commission   on  decay  of 

wood-carving,  .  .         -35 

Ruskin,        .        43  ,327,  330  396,  397 

St.  Wolfgang,  altarpiece  at,  85,  126 

Salting  bequest,  .         .     181,  182,  407 
Salting  collection — 

Figure,  St.  Sebastian,    .  .  258 

Panels,  with  angels,  .     48 

Medallions,           .         .  .181 

Salzwedel,  altarpiece  at,        .  93 

Saragossa,  retables  at,           .  .   205 

Saxony,  character  of  school,  .     86 
Scandinavian  art, 
Schwarz,  H. — 

Gothic  sympathies,        .  170,  173 

Medallions,           .         .  169-174 

Venus,  in  Louvre,          .  -147 
Screens  (see  underChancel  screens). 


Scribe,  statue  of. 
Scriptural  references,    . 
Sepulchral  effigies, 
Seville,  retable  in  cathedral 
Sheik-el-Beled,  statue  of. 
Sketchbook  of  Wilars    de 
court, 


Spain,  wood  sculpture 

transition  period, 

retablos, 

■  stall  work,    . 


ui, 


Stall  work,  early  rare. 
Stalls  (see  under  Choirs) — 

Aerschot, 

Assisi,  . 

Chester 

Chichester, 

Christchurch, 

Cologne, 

Diest,    . 

Dutch, 

Exeter, 

Fordham, 

Gatton, 

Hemingborough, 

King's  College, 

Lausanne, 

Lincoln, 

Louvain, 

N.  D.  de  la  Roche, 

Pienza, 


•  13 
4 

299-306 
of,  .  207 
•  5.  7.  12 
Hone- 

320,351 
192,  213 

•  199 
200,  205,  207 

207 


349 

354 
353 
367 
369 
368 

351 

354 
354 
368 

369 

354 
368 

391.  411 
351.  352 

•  367 

•  354 

•  350  I 

•  353 


Stalls — con  tinudi. 

Poitiers, 

Spanish, 

Sutton  Courteney, 

Wells, 

Westminster, 

Winchester, 

Windsor, 

Worcester,    . 

Xanten, 
Stalls,  the  earliest  at — 

Celles, 

Chichester, 

Christchurch, 

Exeter, 

Fordham, 

Hastieres,     . 

Hemingborough,  . 

Lausanne,     . 

Liege, 

N.  D.  de  la  Roche, 

Poitiers, 

Saint  Gereon,  Cologne, 

Saint-Andoche,     . 

Sutton  Courteney, 

Westminster, 

Xanten, 
Statuary,  canons  of  art, 
Sterzing,  figures  by  Multscher  at, 
Stockholm,  Flemish  retables  at, 
Stoss,  Veit — 

Bamberg  altarpiece, 

Cracow  altarpiece. 

Crucifixes,    . 

Deokarus  altarpiece,     . 

No  examples  of  his  work  in 
England,  . 

Englische  Gruss,  . 

Etched  work. 

Madonna  of  Niirnberg,       80 

Pieta  in  St.  James'  Church,  80,  134 

Private  life,  .         .         .106 

St.  Roch,  statue  of  at  Florence,     So 

Schwabach  altarpiece,  .         -1-7 
Stratton,  churchwardens'  accounts 

of,  .  .  .  .  .  380,  399 
Suabian  altarpieces,  .  .  .84 
Symbolism,  .         .        25,  336-346 


350 
365 
368 

369 
367 
369 
367 
369 
353 

349 
349 
350 
349 
349 
349 
349 
349 
349 
349 
349 
349 
349 
350 
350 
349 
3 
129 

87 

104 
102 

105 
80 

106 
104 
106 
134 


Tarsia  and  Certosina, 


404 


425 


WOOD    SCULPTURE 


Thausing,  his  Life  of  Diirer, 
Theophilus,  treatise  by,        .      13, 
Thuringia,  character  of  school,     . 
Toui,  statuette  of  the  priestess^     . 
Tournai,  schools  of  sculpture  at. 
Tours,  school  of,  ... 

Twelfth  century,  condition  of  art  in, 
Tyrol,  profusion  of  carving  in, 
Tyrolese  Gothic,  character  of. 


PAGE 

92 

273 
86 

19 
66 

47 
23 
85 
85 


Ulm,  choir  of. 


43,  331-333 


Valladolid,  retable  at,  .  .  204 
Vasari,  131,  153,  162,  196,  222,  223, 
242,  244,  246,  257,  258 
Vaughan  bequest,  .  .  .  407 
Venus  panel,  in  Pierpont  Morgan 

collection,         .         .         .     92,  163 
'  Verganglichkeit,'  group  attributed 

to  Riemenschneider,      81,  107,  123 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum — 

Altarpiece,  Italian,  .  .  259 
Angel  of  Annunciation  group,  253 
Anna  selbdritt  groups,     116,  117, 

306 
Apostle  figures,  .  .  .  307 
Boxwood  canon  kneeling,  .  148 
Cast  of  Briiggemann  altar- 
piece,  .  .  .  .136 
Cast  of  Bruges  chimney-piece,  58 
Chests  and  coffers,  .  .  296 
Columns,  Italian,  .         .  241 

Flemish  altarpiece,  .  .77 
Groups  and  figures,  English,  308 
Knife  case,  ....  414 
Madonnas,  French,       .         .  234 


PAGB 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum — coni. 
Mirror  frames,       .         .         .4x4 
Musical  instruments,     .         -414 
Panel,     English,     thirteenth 

century,  ....  307 
Panels,  with  angels,  .  .  48 
Panels  by  M.  Pacher,  .  .128 
Relief  in  pearls,  .  .  .  278 
Spanish  art,  .         .    211,  212 

Suabian  altarpieces,      .         .136 
Twelfth -century    Madonnas, 

226,  228 
Vienna,  Imperial  Museum,  figures 

of  Adam  and  Eve,    .         .         -154 
the  'Verganglich- 
keit,'       .         .         .81,  107,  123 


Wallace  collection. 


Walloon  provinces  and  art, 
Westminster  Hall,  the  roof, 
Wilars  de  Honecourt,  . 
Wohlgemut,  his  workshop. 
Wood,  its  qualities, 

perishable  nature  of, 

varieties  of, 


142,  144,  182, 
184,  189 

•  55 

•  35 
320,  351 

•  97 


Medallions, 


176,  177,  181 


Wood-carving,  preservation  of, 
Wood  sculpture,  ancient. 
Wren,  Sir  Christopher, 
Wiirzburg,  names  of  sculptors  of, 
school  of,    . 


2,  31 
.  31 
33)  34 
•  35 
.  17 
272 

97 
86 


Wydyz,  H.,  Adam  and  Eve  by,  158, 159 


Xant^, 
Zwickau,  Plata  at, 


•     87,  135 
86,  113,  138 


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